Civil Rights

The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, promises that forces will continue their immigration crackdown in an effort to “liberate” Los Angeles, pushing back at criticism that sending the United States military into the city was unwarranted and illegal.

“We have more assets now, today, than we did yesterday. We had more yesterday than we did the day before, so we are only building momentum,” Noem said during a news conference in the city. “This is only going to continue and be increased until we have peace on the streets of Los Angeles.”

As Noem was speaking, a US Democratic senator from California, Alex Padilla, was forcefully ejected from the room while trying to make himself heard – a removal that was swiftly condemned by other Democrats.

Padilla’s office said that once outside the room, the senator was pushed to the ground and handcuffed. He was later released.

President Donald Trump’s decision to dispatch troops to Los Angeles over the objections of California Governor Gavin Newsom has prompted a national debate about the use of the military in law enforcement operations on US soil.

Some 700 US Marines will be on the streets of the city by Thursday or Friday, the military has said, to support up to 4,000 National Guard troops in protecting federal property and federal agents, including on immigration raids.

Noem defended the use of National Guard troops and Marines alongside ICE agents and other federal personnel, saying Trump “has the right to utilise every authority that he has”.

The state of California is seeking a federal court order later today that would stop troops from “patrolling the streets of Los Angeles” and limit their role to protecting federal personnel and property. California’s lawsuit ultimately seeks to rescind Trump’s order to deploy the National Guard to the area.

In a court filing on Thursday, California argued that the federal government has already violated the law by having National Guard troops assist ICE agents in immigration raids.

Noem said federal officers have arrested more than 1,500 people and that the department has “tens of thousands of targets” in the region.

She said the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was investigating whether there are financial links between the protests and political advocacy groups, something of which there has been little evidence.

Trump’s parade

On Saturday, Americans likely will see split-screen images of US troops on the streets of two major cities: Los Angeles, where troops are guarding federal buildings, and Washington, where soldiers, accompanied by tanks and other armoured vehicles, will rumble down Constitution Avenue in a rare public display of military might to celebrate the army’s 250th anniversary.

Nearly 2,000 protests against the parade, which is taking place on Trump’s 79th birthday, are planned around the country in one of the biggest demonstrations against Trump since he returned to power in January.

Mostly peaceful street protests so far this week have taken place in multiple cities besides Los Angeles, including New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, and San Antonio, Texas.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Thursday he has ordered the deployment of more than 5,000 Texas National Guard troops, along with more than 2,000 state police, to help local law enforcement manage protests against Trump and the continuing federal immigration raids.

Abbott’s announcement did not detail where the troops were sent, but some were seen at a protest Wednesday night in downtown San Antonio near the Alamo. That protest drew hundreds of demonstrators but did not erupt into violence.

“Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles in response to President Donald Trump’s enforcement of immigration law,” Abbott said. “Anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property will be arrested and held accountable to the full extent of the law.”

Mayors in San Antonio and Austin have said they did not ask for Abbott to mobilise the National Guard to their cities.

Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe on Thursday also activated the state’s National Guard “in response to civil unrest”.

“We respect, and will defend, the right to peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence or lawlessness in our state,” Kehoe said in a statement on the governor’s website. “While other states may wait for chaos to ensue, the State of Missouri is taking a proactive approach in the event that assistance is needed to support local law enforcement in protecting our citizens and communities.”

The Los Angeles protests began last Friday in response to a series of immigration raids in the city. Trump, in turn, called in the National Guard on Saturday, then ordered the deployment of Marines on Monday.

“Los Angeles was safe and sound for the last two nights. Our great National Guard, with a little help from the Marines, put the LA Police in a position to effectively do their job,” Trump posted on social media on Thursday.

State and city officials say Trump is exaggerating what is happening in the city and that local police have the situation under control. The protests have been largely orderly but occasionally punctuated by violence, mostly contained to a few blocks.

Police said demonstrators at one location threw commercial-grade fireworks and rocks at officers on Wednesday night.

Another group of nearly 1,000 demonstrators was peacefully marching through downtown when police suddenly opened fire with less lethal munitions in front of City Hall.

Limits sought

Trump is carrying out a campaign promise to deport immigrants, employing forceful tactics consistent with the norm-breaking political style that got him elected twice.

The administration has circulated images showing National Guard troops protecting immigration agents who were arresting suspected undocumented migrants – a permissible function for the troops under federal law.

But the state argues those Guard troops have crossed the line into illegal activity under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from participating in civilian law enforcement.

“For example, photos posted on social media by ICE depict heavily armed members of the National Guard standing alongside ICE agents during arrests,” California said in its latest court filing.

Unless a judge intervenes, the military’s role likely will grow to include “detention, interrogation, and other activities that are practically indistinguishable from urban policing operations”, the filing asserts.

The Trump administration said in a Wednesday court filing that the judge should not restrict the military’s activities in Los Angeles.

“Neither the National Guard nor the Marines are engaged in law enforcement. Rather, they are protecting law enforcement, consistent with longstanding practice and the inherent protective power to provide for the safety of federal property and personnel,” the administration wrote.

US Army Major-General Scott Sherman, who commands the task force of Marines and Guardsmen, told reporters the Marines will not load their rifles with live ammunition, but they will carry live rounds.

Protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, which began on June 6 in Los Angeles, have spread beyond the California city, across the United States.

This comes days before a military parade scheduled on Saturday in Washington, DC, which marks the US Army’s 250th anniversary. More protests across the US are scheduled on Saturday.

Here is what we know about what is happening and where.

Why are there protests in LA?

On June 6, ICE carried out immigration enforcement raids in LA, in which uniformed ICE agents arrived at various sites in LA in groups of unmarked vehicles, arresting 44 people in a military-style operation.

The operation triggered protests in LA on the same day, and crowds rallied outside a facility where some of the detainees were believed to be held. They were dispersed by police, but protests began again soon after.

US President Donald Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard troops into the city on June 8, a move condemned as an “illegal takeover” by California Governor Gavin Newsom, who then filed a lawsuit to try to prevent their deployment onto the city streets. The next day, Trump doubled the number of active National Guard troops in the city to 4,000.

On Monday, Trump also ordered 700 marines to be deployed from the Twentynine Palms base east of Los Angeles, describing the city as a “trash heap” that was in danger of burning to the ground.

A federal court hearing about whether or not Trump can legally deploy the National Guard and marines to assist with immigration raids in LA is scheduled for Thursday.

Marines arrived in the city on Tuesday. However, as of Wednesday, they had still not completed training, The Hill reported, citing an unnamed US Northern Command official. The marines are now expected to join the National Guard troops on the streets of LA on Friday.

On Tuesday night, LA Mayor Karen Bass announced a curfew in downtown LA, and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) made several arrests.

A sixth day of protests continued on Wednesday. These were mostly peaceful but featured occasional outbursts of violence.

Where have the protests spread to?

By June 9, protests against the ICE raids and Trump’s deployment of the military had spilled over to several other US cities in solidarity with the LA protesters.

By Wednesday, protests had appeared in 12 other cities across several states. Here is the situation in each city:

California

LA is not the only city in California which is experiencing protests.

San Francisco

Soon after the start of the LA protests, a peaceful protest began in San Francisco with demonstrators gathering outside an ICE building on financial hub Sansome Street in the north of the city.

Local media reported that police arrived in riot gear and made arrests.

On Sunday, June 8, San Francisco police arrested about 60 people, and declared the protest an “unlawful assembly”.

On Monday, the San Francisco police released a statement on X, saying the demonstrations had been “overwhelmingly peaceful” but that “two small groups broke off and committed vandalism and other criminal acts”. It said police had made more arrests, without specifying the number of people arrested. Local media reports suggest the number could be above 150.

Local media reported that ICE agents were also arresting migrants in San Francisco. The city’s mayor, Democrat Daniel Lurie, shared this news on X on Monday, saying: “I have been briefed on the ongoing immigration enforcement actions taking place downtown.”

Lurie added: “I have been and will continue to be clear that these federal immigration enforcement tactics are intended to instil fear, and they make our city less safe.”

He stated the police force would not be involved in making immigration arrests. “Under our city’s longstanding policies, local law enforcement does not participate in federal immigration enforcement. Those are our policies, and they make our city safer.”

On Tuesday, 200 protesters rallied outside the San Francisco Immigration Court. Protests were also reported in the nearby city of Oakland.

Santa Ana

On Monday, protests broke out in Santa Ana in Orange County, a largely Mexican-American city just south of LA.

The protests broke out following reports of ICE raids in the city.

Local media reported that several hundred people were protesting outside the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and court.

The Santa Ana Police Department released a statement on X saying it was aware of the immigration enforcement actions and would not participate in them.

However, the police department posted another statement on X later on Monday saying: “When a peaceful demonstration escalates into rocks, bottles, mortars, and fireworks being used against public service personnel, and property is destroyed, it is no longer a lawful assembly. It is a violation of the law.” Local media reported that several arrests were made.

Police chief Robert Rodriguez said peaceful protesters would be protected but urged residents not to participate in violent protests or vandalism. “Those who participate in unlawful activities will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

On Tuesday, National Guard troops were deployed to Santa Ana and clashes with protesters were reported.

Washington State

Protests have broken out in Seattle, Washington State’s most populous city.

Seattle

About 50 protesters gathered outside the immigration court in downtown Seattle on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters marched downtown from Capitol Hill. According to the Seattle Police Department, this demonstration was mostly peaceful, but some individuals set fire to a dumpster, which prompted police intervention.

Several clashes were also reported between protesters and the police, who arrested eight people for assault and obstruction.

Spokane

Protests also broke out in Spokane, a city towards the eastern side of Washington State.

The police arrested more than 30 protesters and dispersed the crowd using pepper balls, Spokane police chief Kevin Hall told a news conference.

Mayor Lisa Brown imposed a night curfew in the city, which was set to last until 5am (12:00 GMT) on Thursday.

Texas

Protests have broken out in several cities in Texas. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote on X on Tuesday: “Texas National Guard will be deployed to locations across the state to ensure peace & order. Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest.”

San Antonio

On Tuesday, Abbott deployed the National Guard ahead of protests in San Antonio. The city’s mayor, Democrat Ron Nirenberg, said on Wednesday that he had not been informed in advance about the National Guard deployment and had not requested it.

More than 400 protesters gathered outside the city hall on Wednesday in a largely peaceful protest.

Austin

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Monday between the Texas State Capitol building and a federal building which holds an ICE staff office.

More than a dozen people were arrested, Abbott wrote in an X post. The police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse protesters. Some protesters threw rocks at officers and graffitied a federal building, according to local media reports.

Protesters also gathered in the Texas cities of Dallas and Houston.

Denver, Colorado

Protesters gathered outside the Colorado State Capitol in Denver on Tuesday. Police said they arrested 18 people when protesters tried to cross Interstate 25, a highway that runs through New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.

Chicago, Illinois

On Tuesday, thousands of protesters gathered near an immigration centre in Chicago and marched downtown, blocking a plaza.

Some 17 people were arrested, according to the police and some clashes between protesters and police were reported. On the same day, a 66-year-old woman was treated for a fractured arm after she was hit by a car that drove through the protest. No other injuries have been reported.

Omaha, Nebraska

On Tuesday morning, immigration authorities raided a meat production plant in Nebraska’s Omaha city, taking dozens of workers away with them in buses.

Local media reported that about 400 people protested against this raid on Tuesday along the 33rd and L streets.

Boston, Massachusetts

On Monday, hundreds of people gathered outside Boston City Hall, calling for the release of trade union leader David Huerta, who was arrested during the LA protests. Huerta was released on Monday afternoon on a $50,000 bond. However, he remains charged with conspiracy to impede an officer, a felony which could result in a maximum of six years in prison, according to the office of the US Attorney.

New York

Thousands of people protested in Lower Manhattan in New York City on Tuesday. The protesters rallied near an ICE facility and federal courts.

On Tuesday, New York police took 86 people into custody. Some 34 of them were charged, while the rest received a criminal court summons. The police took more people into custody on Wednesday, but did not specify how many.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

On Tuesday afternoon, about 150 people gathered outside the Federal Detention Center and marched between the centre and ICE’s headquarters in the city.

After a group defied police orders to disperse from a major road, 15 people were arrested.

Washington, DC

Demonstrators marched past the Justice Department building in the US capital on Monday. The protesters were calling for the release of union leader David Huerta. There have been no reports of violence or arrests.

Will more protests take place?

Yes. On Saturday, protests opposing Trump’s policies in general are planned in nearly 2,000 locations from parks to cities to small towns.

They will coincide with a military parade in Washington, DC, commemorating the US army’s anniversary, and with Trump’s 79th birthday. No protests are planned in Washington, DC.

Rioters attacked a leisure centre hosting people fleeing what police called ‘racist thuggery’ in the town of Ballymena.

Riots have erupted for a third consecutive night in Northern Ireland, with police condemning the violence as “racist thuggery” that erupted following an alleged sexual assault.

A few dozen masked rioters in the primary flashpoint of Ballymena attacked police, but the unrest was on a smaller scale in the town on Wednesday night compared with previous days.

Youths threw rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at officers in riot gear as armoured vehicles blocked roads in the town. Police also deployed water cannon for the second night in a row, but the clashes were far smaller than the previous nights, when five people were arrested and more than 30 police officers were injured. Much of the crowd had left the streets before midnight.

Small pockets of violence also erupted in the town of Larne, located 30km (18 miles) west of Ballymena, where masked youths smashed the windows of a leisure centre before starting fires in the lobby, footage widely shared on social media showed.

Gordon Lyons, the communities minister in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, had earlier said a number of people seeking refuge from the anti-immigrant violence in Ballymena had been temporarily moved to the leisure centre.

Lyons’s post drew sharp criticism from other political parties for identifying the location where the families had taken shelter. Youths also set fires at a roundabout in the town of Newtownabbey, according to police, while debris was also set alight at a barricade in the town of Coleraine.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he “utterly condemns” the violence which had left 32 police officers injured after the second night of disturbances.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly appeared together on Wednesday to voice their condemnation.

O’Neill told reporters in Belfast: “It’s pure racism, there is no other way to dress it up” while Little-Pengelly described the scenes in Ballymena as “unacceptable thuggery”.

Racially motivated

Violence initially flared on Monday in Ballymena – a town of 30,000 people located 44km (28 miles) from the capital Belfast with a relatively large migrant population – after a peaceful vigil was held for a teenage girl who was the victim of an alleged sexual assault on Saturday.

Two 14-year-old boys accused of carrying out the attack appeared in court on Monday. Communicating in court via a Romanian interpreter, the pair denied the charges, according to local media reports.

Police said the trouble began when people in masks broke away from the vigil and began “build[ing] barricades, stockpiling missiles and attacking properties”.

Tensions remained high throughout Tuesday, with residents saying “foreigners” were being targeted. Two Filipino families fled their home in the town after their car was set on fire, the Reuters news agency reported.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher warned that the rioting “risks undermining” the criminal justice process in the sexual assault allegations.

Some Ballymena residents have begun marking their front doors to indicate their nationality to avoid attack, according to the Belfast Telegraph newspaper.

Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson also said the violence was “clearly racially motivated” and “targeted at our minority ethnic community”.

While the ruling does not order Khalil’s immediate release, it does undermine the US government’s case against Khalil.

A federal judge in New Jersey has ruled the administration of United States President Donald Trump cannot use an obscure law to detain Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestine advocacy.

The ruling from US District Judge Michael Farbiarz on Wednesday cut to the core of the Trump administration’s justification for deporting Khalil, a permanent US resident. But it came short of ordering Khalil’s immediate release from detention.

Instead, Judge Farbiarz gave the administration until 9:30am local (13:30 GMT) on Friday to appeal. After that point, Khalil would be eligible for release on a $1 bail.

Nevertheless, the judge wrote that the administration was violating Khalil’s right to free speech by detaining and trying to deport him under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. That provision allows the secretary of state to remove foreign nationals who bear “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

Judge Farbiarz has previously signalled he believes that provision to be unconstitutional, contradicting the right to free speech.

“The petitioner’s career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled,” Farbiarz wrote on Wednesday. “This adds up to irreparable harm.”

Khalil was arrested on March 8 after immigration agents showed up at his student apartment building at Columbia University in New York City. After his arrest, the State Department revoked his green card. He has since been held at an immigration detention centre in Louisiana.

The administration has accused Khalil, a student protest leader, of anti-Semitism and supporting Hamas, but officials have offered no evidence to support their claims, either publicly or in court files.

Critics have instead argued that the administration is using such claims to silence all forms of pro-Palestine advocacy.

Like other student protesters targeted for deportation, Khalil is challenging his deportation in immigration court, while simultaneously challenging his arrest and detention in federal proceedings.

The latter is called a habeas corpus petition, and it asserts that the Trump administration has violated his civil liberties by unlawfully keeping him behind bars.

While students in the other high-profile cases — including Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk and Badar Khan Suri — have all been released from detention as their legal proceedings move forward, a ruling in Khalil’s case has been slower coming.

In April, an immigration judge had ruled that Khalil was deportable based on the State Department’s interpretation of the 1952 law, despite a written letter from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio providing no further evidence for the allegations made against him.

Immigration judges fall under the executive branch of the US government and are generally considered less independent than judges in the judicial branch.

Also that month, immigration authorities denied Khalil’s request for temporary release for his son’s birth.

In the case before the New Jersey federal court, meanwhile, the Trump administration has argued that Khalil was not fully transparent in his green card application, something his lawyers deny. But Judge Farbiarz indicated on Wednesday that it was unusual and “overwhelmingly unlikely” for permanent residents to be detained on such grounds.

The nightclub is being replaced with a permanent memorial to one of the US’s worst mass shootings in modern history.

Survivors and family members of the 49 victims killed at an LGBTQ+ friendly nightclub in the United States have gotten their first chance to walk through it before it is demolished and replaced with a permanent memorial to what at the time was considered the worst mass shooting in modern US history.

In small groups over four days starting Wednesday, survivors and family members of those killed plan to spend half an hour at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where Omar Mateen opened fire during a Latin night celebration on June 12, 2016, leaving 49 dead and 53 wounded. Mateen, who had pledged allegiance to ISIL (ISIS), was killed after a three-hour standoff with police.

The Pulse shooting‘s death toll was surpassed the following year when 58 people were killed and more than 850 injured among a crowd of 22,000 at a country music festival in Las Vegas.

The city of Orlando purchased the Pulse property in 2023 for $2m and plans to build a $12m permanent memorial that will open in 2027. These efforts follow a fumbled attempt to create a memorial over many years by a private foundation run by the club’s former owner.

The existing structure will be razed later this year.

“None of us thought that it would take nine years to get to this point, and we can’t go back and relitigate all of the failures along the way that have happened. But what we can do is control how we move forward together,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said two weeks ago, when county commissioners pledged $5m to support the city of Orlando’s plan.

The opportunity to visit the nightclub comes on the ninth anniversary of the mass shooting.

About 250 survivors and family members of those killed have responded to the city’s invitation to walk through the nightclub this week. Families of the 49 people who were killed can visit the site with up to six people in their group, and survivors can bring one person with them. The club has been cleaned, and lighting has been installed ahead of the walk-throughs.

The people invited to visit are being given the chance to ask FBI agents who investigated the massacre about what happened.

Mental health counsellors will be available to talk to those who walk through the building in what could be both a healing and traumatic moment for them.

“The building may come down, and we may finally get a permanent memorial, but that doesn’t change the fact that this community has been scarred for life,” said Brandon Wolf, who survived the massacre by hiding in a bathroom as the gunman opened fire. He does not plan to visit the site.

“There are people inside the community who still need and will continue to need support and resources.”

National Guard soldiers and even the United States Marines are on the streets of Los Angeles.

They were deployed by President Donald Trump after mass protests against his immigration raids.

California’s governor is suing him – while the protests spread to other cities.

Could this crisis worsen?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests: 

Peter Eliasberg – chief counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California

Claire Finkelstein – professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania

Mark Pfeifle – Republican strategist, founder and president of Off the Record Strategies

The fate of millions of immigrants is at stake as Italians vote in a two-day referendum that proposes to speed up the process of acquiring citizenship for foreigners who legally entered the country.

The referendum also seeks to roll back labour reforms to provide enhanced job protections.

Polling stations opened on Sunday at 7am local time (05:00 GMT), with results expected after polls close on Monday at 3pm (13:00 GMT).

The measures – backed by opposition parties, labour unions and social activists – are aimed at revising citizenship laws to help second-generation Italians born in the country, to non-European Union parents, integrate more easily.

However, the vote may fail to generate sufficient turnout to be deemed valid – a turnout of more than 50 percent is required for a referendum to be legally binding.

Ahead of this weekend’s vote, the citizenship issue has garnered plenty of attention in a nation where concerns over the scale of immigration helped propel right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s anti-migration coalition to power in late 2022. Immigration has emerged as a key issue, particularly in Western Europe as well as the United States under President Donald Trump.

So, what does the referendum propose, and what does it mean for immigrants whose lives are in limbo due to the slow process of naturalisation in the EU member nation?

What are the Italian citizenship requirements, and how many immigrants are waiting for citizenship?

The question on the ballot paper asks Italians if they back reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship, by naturalisation, from 10 years to five.

The change proposed by the referendum would allow nearly 1.5 million foreigners to obtain citizenship immediately, according to an estimate by Idos, an Italian research centre. That would include nearly 300,000 minors, who would obtain citizenship if their parents did.

About half of Italy’s 5.4 million foreign residents could be eligible to apply for citizenship if the vote is passed.

The vote comes as Meloni has tightened citizenship laws, making it hard for resident immigrants to obtain nationality.

Currently, immigrants from countries outside the EU can apply for citizenship only after 10 years of uninterrupted residency in Italy.

What is more, the children of lawful immigrants can apply for passports only once they have turned 18 and if they have continuously lived in the country since birth.

On the other hand, generous bloodline laws allowed people of Italian descent, even if remote, to obtain citizenship, helping maintain a link with the diaspora.

Between 2016 and 2023, for instance, Italy granted citizenship to more than 98,300 people, mostly living in Latin America, based on their claims of Italian ancestry.

With Italy’s birthrate in sharp decline, economists say the country needs to attract more foreigners to boost its anaemic economy.

Francesco Galietti, from political risk firm Policy Sonar, told the Reuters news agency that keeping such rules tight was “an identity issue” for Meloni, but she was also being pushed by businesses to open up the borders of an ageing country to foreign workers.

“On the one hand, there is the cultural identity rhetoric, but on the other, there are potential problems paying pensions and an economy that relies on manufacturing, which needs workers,” Galietti said.

For context, Italy’s constitution allows citizens to repeal laws through referendums, part of the system of checks and balances devised after Benito Mussolini’s fascist rule in the 1940s.

What are the other proposals in the referendum?

The referendum seeks to make it harder to fire workers and increase compensation for those laid off by small businesses, reversing a previous law passed by a centre-left government a decade ago.

One of the questions on the ballot also addresses the urgent issue of security at work, restoring joint liability to both contractors and subcontractors for workplace injuries.

Campaigners gathered more than 4.5 million signatures, according to the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) union, far more than needed to trigger the referendum, which will comprise five questions – four on the labour market and one on citizenship.

“We want to reverse a culture that has prioritised the interests of business over those of workers,” CGIL general secretary Maurizio Landini told the AFP news agency.

Who backed the referendum and why?

The referendum was promoted by a coalition of relatively small political parties – More Europe, Possibile, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Radicals and the Communist Refoundation Party – and numerous civil society associations.

It is also being backed by the centre-left Democratic Party, which is jockeying for Italian citizenship laws to be more aligned with EU-wide standards.

Research shows that access to citizenship has positive causal effects.

Immigrants who naturalise experience lower unemployment rates, earn higher incomes and are less likely to be overqualified for their jobs.

By contrast, protracted waiting periods for naturalisation delay or dampen these effects.

These findings support the claim that naturalisation is not only a reward, but also an important catalyst for integration.

The majority of Italians think that citizenship accelerates the integration process as well.

The last Eurobarometer on the integration of immigrants reports that 87 percent of Italians believe that acquiring citizenship is an important factor for the successful integration of immigrants in Italy.

Even if it passes, however, the reform will not affect the law many consider deeply unfair – that children born in Italy to foreign parents cannot request nationality until they reach 18.

Does PM Meloni back the new citizenship rules?

Opposition left-wing and centrist parties, civil society groups and a leading trade union have latched on to the issues of labour rights and Italy’s demographic woes as a way of challenging Meloni’s right-wing coalition government.

Meloni has said she would show up at the polls but not cast a ballot – a move widely criticised by the left as antidemocratic, since it will not help reach the necessary threshold to make the vote valid.

Activists and opposition parties have denounced the lack of public debate on the measures, accusing the governing centre-right coalition of trying to dampen interest in sensitive issues that directly affect immigrants and workers.

A Demopolis institute poll last month estimated turnout would be in the range of 31-39 percent among Italy’s roughly 50 million electors, well short of the required threshold.

Leaders of two of the governing coalition’s right-wing parties, Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini of the League, have opposed the vote.

The referendum is “dangerous” and would extend access to citizenship “indiscriminately”, Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, said in May.

How significant is the referendum?

Supporters say this reform would bring Italy’s citizenship law in line with many other European countries, promoting greater social integration for long-term residents.

It would also allow faster access to civil and political rights, such as the right to vote, eligibility for public employment and freedom of movement within the EU.

Italy is also confronting one of Europe’s most acute demographic crises.

Its population is ageing rapidly, with about a quarter of Italians aged above 65 years and just 12 percent aged 14 or younger. The referendum could ease some of these pressures.

The Education Department accuses the Ivy League school of violating the Civil Rights Act and calls for its accreditor to take action.

The United States Department of Education has notified Columbia University’s accreditor that the Ivy League school allegedly broke federal anti-discrimination laws.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) claimed that Columbia University had “acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students”.

As a result, they said that Columbia violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, colour or national origin.

“Specifically, OCR and HHS OCR found that Columbia failed to meaningfully protect Jewish students against severe and pervasive harassment on Columbia’s campus and consequently denied these students’ equal access to educational opportunities to which they are entitled under the law,” the statement said.

It quoted Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who accused Columbia University of ignoring the ongoing harassment of Jewish students on its campus since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.

“This is not only immoral, but also unlawful,” McMahon said

She added that the accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, has “an obligation to ensure member institutions abide by their standards”.

The commission is one of seven regional bodies that reviews colleges, universities and other institutions of higher education to ensure they meet the standards needed to grant degrees.

McMahon described accreditation institutions as the “gatekeepers of federal student aid” and explained that they decide which schools are eligible for student loans.

“We look forward to the Commission keeping the Department fully informed of actions taken to ensure Columbia’s compliance with accreditation standards including compliance with federal civil rights laws,” McMahon said.

The statement specified that the Education Department and HHS had come to their determination about Columbia University’s civil rights compliance on May 22.

The Ivy League school had been an epicentre for pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel student protest movements, with some of the first student encampments cropping up on its lawn in April 2024.

The university has remained in the news with arrests of high-profile student activists like Mahmoud Khalil in March and Mohsen Mahdawi in April.

Mahdawi has since been released, though he, like Khalil, continues to face deportation proceedings.

The administration of President Donald Trump has accused the demonstrators of creating unsafe conditions for Jewish students on campus, something the protest leaders have denied.

It reiterated that allegation in Wednesday’s statement, where it summed up the “noncompliance findings” that allegedly show Columbia at odds with civil rights law.

“The findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students at Columbia University have had to endure for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety, and well-being,” said Anthony Archeval, acting director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, in the statement.

“We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students.”

The university did not immediately respond to a request by the Reuters news agency for comment.

The Trump administration and Columbia University were in negotiations over $400m in federal funding for the New York-based Ivy League school. Columbia agreed to a series of demands from the administration in a bid to keep the funds flowing, but the US government has not confirmed whether it will restore the contracts and grants that it paused.

In March, McMahon had said Columbia University was “on the right track” toward recovering its federal funding.

Amnesty International calls for an investigation into the ‘reckless’ attack in the violence-hit Zamfara state.

A military air strike in northwest Nigeria has killed at least 20 people, according to the military and local residents, prompting calls from human rights groups for an investigation into the attack.

The strike occurred over the weekend in Zamfara state, one of the regions worst affected by violence from armed groups, commonly referred to as “bandits”.

Nigerian Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame said the strike followed intelligence that “a significant number of terrorists were massing and preparing to strike unsuspecting settlements”.

“Further intelligence confirmed that the bandits had killed some farmers and abducted a number of civilians, including women and children,” Ejodame said in a statement, adding that two local vigilantes were killed and two others injured in the crossfire.

However, according to residents cited by the AFP news agency, a group of local vigilantes pursuing a gang was mistakenly bombed by a Nigerian military jet.

The air force had been called in by villagers who had suffered an attack earlier in the weekend. Locals said an unknown number of people were also wounded in the strike.

“We were hit by double tragedy on Saturday,” said Buhari Dangulbi, a resident of the affected area. “Dozens of our people and several cows were taken by bandits, and those who trailed the bandits to rescue them were attacked by a fighter jet. It killed 20 of them.”

Residents told AFP that the bandits had earlier attacked the villages of Mani and Wabi in Maru district, stealing cattle and abducting several people. In response, vigilantes launched a pursuit to recover the captives and stolen livestock.

“The military aircraft arrived and started firing, killing at least 20 of our people,” Abdullahi Ali, a Mani resident and member of a local hunters’ militia, told the Reuters news agency.

Another resident, Ishiye Kabiru, said: “Our vigilantes from Maraya and nearby communities gathered and went after the bandits. Unfortunately, a military jet struck them.”

Alka Tanimu, also from the area, added: “We will still have to pay to get those kidnapped back, while the cows are gone for good.”

Amnesty International condemned the strike and urged a full investigation.

“Attacks by bandits clearly warrant a response from the state, but to launch reckless air strikes into villages – again and again – is absolutely unlawful,” the rights group said.

Nigeria’s military has previously acknowledged mistakenly hitting civilians during air operations targeting armed gangs.

In January, at least 16 vigilantes were killed in a similar strike in Zamfara’s Zurmi district.

In December 2022, more than 100 civilians were killed in Mutunji village while pursuing bandits. A year later, an attack on a religious gathering in Kaduna state killed at least 85 people.

Just 40 countries representing 3.5 percent of the world’s population respect all civil liberties, a new study has found, warning that “democracy and human rights are under attack worldwide in a way we have not seen for decades.”

The Atlas of Civil Society report published by the German relief organisation Brot fur die Welt (Bread for the World) on Monday said only 284 million people living in “open” countries – including Austria, Estonia, the Scandinavian countries, New Zealand and Jamaica – enjoy protection of unrestricted civil rights and liberties.

The nongovernmental organisation defines a country as “open” if it allows people to form associations “without legal or practical barriers, demonstrate in public spaces, receive information and are allowed to disseminate it”.

Forty-two countries making up 11.1 percent of the world’s population are listed in a second category in which civil rights are classified as “impaired”. These include Germany, Slovakia, Argentina and the United States.

In these countries, the rights to freedom of assembly and expression are largely respected, but there are recorded violations.

‘Restricted, suppressed or closed’

“In contrast, 85 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where civil society is restricted, suppressed, or closed. This affects almost seven billion people,” the report found.

“Their governments severely restrict civil liberties and harass, arrest, or kill critical voices. This applies to 115 of 197 countries,” it added.

Several European countries appear in the “restricted” category, including Greece, the United Kingdom, Hungary and Ukraine.

Civil society is considered “oppressed” in 51 countries, including Algeria, Mexico and Turkey. In these countries, governments monitor, imprison or kill critics, and exercise censorship, according to the data.

Finally, Russia and 28 other countries are classified as “closed” and
characterised by an “atmosphere of fear”. Criticism of the government
or regime in these countries is severely punished.

Brot fur die Welt drew on data collected by the Civicus network of civil society organisations worldwide for its annual report covering 197 countries and territories.

Nine countries improved their freedom of expression ratings last year, including Jamaica, Japan, Slovenia, Trinidad and Tobago, Botswana, Fiji, Liberia, Poland and Bangladesh.

However, nine countries were downgraded from the previous year, including Georgia, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Peru, Ethiopia, Eswatini, the Netherlands, Mongolia and the Palestinian territory.

Dagmar Pruin, president of Brot fur die Welt, warned that “the rule of law, the separation of powers and protection against state arbitrariness are under threat or no longer exist in more and more countries.”

A United States federal judge has said that an effort by the administration of President Donald Trump to deport pro-Palestine student activist Mahmoud Khalil is likely unconstitutional.

District Judge Michael Farbiarz of New Jersey wrote on Wednesday that the government’s claim that Khalil constituted a threat to US national security and foreign policy was not likely to succeed.

“Would an ordinary person have a sense that he could be removed from the United States because he ‘compromise[d]’ American ‘foreign policy interests’ — that is, because he compromised US relations with other countries — when the Secretary has not determined that his actions impacted US relations with a foreign country?” Farbiarz wrote. “Probably not.”

Farbiarz did not immediately rule on the question of whether Khalil’s First Amendment rights to free speech were violated. He also did not order Khalil’s immediate release, citing unanswered questions about his permanent residency application.

The judge is expected to order further steps in the coming days.

A ruling against the government would be the latest legal setback for the Trump administration’s controversial efforts to crack down on pro-Palestine activism across the US in the name of national security and combating anti-Semitism.

But critics have accused the Trump administration of violating basic constitutional rights in its efforts to do so.

Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the US, was the first high-profile arrest made in the Trump administration’s push to expel student protesters involved in demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza.

A former graduate student, Khalil had served as a spokesperson for the antiwar protests at Columbia University. But on March 8, the 30-year-old was arrested in the hall of his student housing building in New York City, while his wife, Dr Noor Abdalla, filmed the incident.

He was then transferred from a detention centre in New Jersey to one in Jena, Louisiana, while his lawyers struggled to ascertain his location. He remains imprisoned in the Jena facility while the US government seeks his deportation.

In public statements, Khalil has said that his detention is part of an effort to chill dissent over US support for Israel’s war, which has been described as a genocide by human rights groups and United Nations experts.

Civil liberties organisations have also expressed alarm that Khalil’s detention appears premised on his political views, rather than any criminal acts. Khalil has not been charged with any crime.

In Louisiana, Khalil continues to face an immigration court weighing his deportation. But in a separate case before the US federal court in Newark, New Jersey, Khalil’s lawyers are arguing a habeas corpus petition: in other words, a case that argues their client has been unlawfully detained.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting on behalf of the Trump administration, has cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 as the legal basis for Khalil’s detention.

That Cold War-era law stipulates that the secretary of state can deport a foreign national if that person is deemed to pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences”.

But that law has been rarely used and raises concerns about conflicts with the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech regardless of citizenship.

Judge Farbiarz appeared to echo that concern, warning that the Trump administration’s rationale appeared to meet the standards for “constitutional vagueness”.

That, in turn, means Khalil’s petition is “likely to succeed on the merits of his claim” that the government’s actions were unconstitutional, the judge wrote on Wednesday.

Khalil’s legal team applauded the judge’s order, writing in a statement afterwards, “The district court held what we already knew: Secretary Rubio’s weaponization of immigration law to punish Mahmoud and others like him is likely unconstitutional.”

Khalil is one of several high-profile students whose cases have tested the constitutional bounds of the Trump administration’s actions.

Other international students detained for their involvement in pro-Palestine politics, such as Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, have been released from detention after legal challenges.

But Khalil remains in detention. The government denied a request for Khalil’s temporary release that would have allowed him to witness the birth of his son in April.

It also sought to prevent him from holding his newborn son during visitation sessions at a Louisiana detention centre.

“I am furious at the cruelty and inhumanity of this system that dares to call itself just,” Abdalla, Khalil’s wife, said in a statement.

She noted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had denied the family “this most basic human right” after she flew more than 1,000 miles to visit him in Louisiana with their newborn son.

A judge blocked those efforts by ICE last week, allowing Khalil to hold his son for the first time more than one month after he was born.

Mullivaikkal, Sri Lanka – On a beach in northeastern Sri Lanka, Krishnan Anjan Jeevarani laid out some of her family’s favourite food items on a banana leaf. She placed a samosa, lollipops and a large bottle of Pepsi next to flowers and incense sticks in front of a framed photo.

Jeevarani was one of thousands of Tamils who gathered on May 18 to mark 16 years since the end of Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war in Mullivaikkal, the site of the final battle between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that fought for a Tamil homeland.

As on previous anniversaries, Tamils this year lit candles in remembrance of their loved ones and held a moment of silence. Dressed in black, people paid their respects before a memorial fire and ate kanji, the gruel consumed by civilians when they were trapped in Mullivaikkal amid acute food shortages.

This year’s commemorations were the first to take place under the new government helmed by leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who was elected president in September and has prompted hopes of possible justice and answers for the Tamil community.

The Tamil community alleges that a genocide of civilians took place during the war’s final stages, estimating that nearly 170,000 people were killed by government forces. UN estimates put the figure at 40,000.

Dissanayake, the leader of the Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which itself led violent uprisings against the Sri Lankan government in the 1970s and 1980s, has emphasised “national unity” and its aim to wipe out racism. He made several promises to Tamil voters before the elections last year, including the withdrawal from military-occupied territory in Tamil heartlands and the release of political prisoners.

But eight months after he was elected, those commitments are now being tested – and while it’s still early days for his administration, many in the Tamil community say what they’ve seen so far is mixed, with some progress, but also disappointments.

No ‘climate of fear’ but no ‘real change’ either

In March 2009, Jeevarani lost several members of her family, including her parents, her sister and three-year-old daughter when Sri Lankan forces shelled the tents in which they were sheltering, near Mullivaikkal.

“We had just cooked and eaten and we were happy,” she said. “When the shell fell it was like we had woken up from a dream.”

Jeevarani, now 36, buried all her family members in a bunker and left the area, her movements dictated by shelling until she reached Mullivaikkal. In May 2009, she and the surviving members of her family entered army-controlled territory.

Now, 16 years later, as she and other Sri Lankan Tamils commemorated their lost family members, most said their memorials had gone largely unobstructed, although there were reports of police disrupting one event in the eastern part of the country.

This was a contrast from previous years of state crackdowns on such commemorative events.

“There isn’t that climate of fear which existed during the two Rajapaksa regimes,” said Ambika Satkunanathan, a human rights lawyer and former commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, referring to former presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brothers who between them ruled Sri Lanka for 13 out of 17 years between 2005 and 2022.

It was under Mahinda Rajapaksa that the Sri Lankan army carried out the final, bloody assaults that ended the war in 2009, amid allegations of human rights abuses.

“But has anything changed substantively [under Dissanayake]? Not yet,” said Satkunanathan.

Satkunanathan cited the government’s continued use of Sri Lanka’s controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and a gazette issued on March 28 to seize land in Mullivaikkal as problematic examples of manifesto promises being overturned in an evident lack of transparency.

Despite his pre-election promises, Dissnayake’s government earlier this month denounced Tamil claims of genocide as “a false narrative”. On May 19, one day after the Tamil commemorations, Dissanayake also attended a “War Heroes” celebration of the Sri Lankan armed forces as the chief guest, while the Ministry of Defence announced the promotion of a number of military and navy personnel. In his speech, Dissanayake stated that “grief knows no ethnicity”, suggesting a reconciliatory stance, while also paying tribute to the “fallen heroes” of the army who “we forever honour in our hearts.”

‘We walked over dead bodies’

Kathiravelu Sooriyakumari, a 60-year-old retired principal, said casualties in Mullivaikkal in 2009 were so extreme that “we even had to walk over dead bodies.”

She said government forces had used white phosphorus during the civil war, a claim Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly denied. Although not explicitly banned, many legal scholars interpret international law as prohibiting the use of white phosphorus – an incendiary chemical that can burn the skin down to the bone – in densely populated areas.

Sooriyakumari’s husband, Rasenthiram, died during an attack near Mullivaikkal while trying to protect others.

“He was sending everyone to the bunker. When he had sent everyone and was about to come himself, a shell hit a tree and then bounced off and hit him, and he died,” she said. Although his internal organs were coming out, “he raised his head and looked around at all of us, to see we were safe.”

Her son was just seven months old. “He has never seen his father’s face,” she said.

The war left many households like Sooriyakumari’s without breadwinners. They have experienced even more acute food shortage following Sri Lanka’s 2022 economic crisis and the subsequent rise in the cost of living.

“If we starve, will anyone come and check on us?” said 63-year-old Manoharan Kalimuthu, whose son died in Mullivaikkal after leaving a bunker to relieve himself and being hit by a shell. “If they [children who died in the final stages of the war] were here, they would’ve looked after us.”

Kalimuthu said she did not think the new government would deliver justice to Tamils, saying, “We can believe it only when we see it.”

‘No accountability’

Sooriyakumari also said she did not believe anything would change under the new administration.

“There’s been a lot of talk but no action. No foundations have been laid, so how can we believe them?” she told Al Jazeera. “So many Sinhalese people these days have understood our pain and suffering and are supporting us … but the government is against us.”

She also expressed suspicion of Dissanayake’s JVP party and its history of violence, saying she and the wider Tamil community “were scared of the JVP before”. The party had backed Rajapaksa’s government when the army crushed the Tamil separatist movement.

Satkunanathan said the JVP’s track record showed “they supported the Rajapaksas, they were pro-war, they were anti-devolution, anti-international community, were all anti-UN, all of which they viewed as conspiring against Sri Lanka.”

She conceded that the party was seeking to show that it had “evolved to a more progressive position but their action is falling short of rhetoric”.

Although Dissanayake’s government has announced plans to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, it has rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on accountability for war crimes, much like previous governments. Before the presidential elections, Dissanayake said he would not seek to prosecute those responsible for war crimes.

“On accountability for wartime violations, they have not moved at all,” Satkunanathan told Al Jazeera, citing the government’s refusal to engage with the UN-initiated Sri Lanka Accountability Project (SLAP), which was set up to collect evidence of potential war crimes. “I would love them to prove me wrong.”

The government has also repeatedly changed its stance on the Thirteenth Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which promises devolved powers to Tamil-majority areas in the north and east. Before the presidential election, Dissanayake said he supported its implementation in meetings with Tamil parties, but the government has not outlined a clear plan for this, with the JVP’s general secretary dismissing it as unnecessary shortly after the presidential election.

‘We need answers’

“Six months since coming into office, there’s no indication of the new government’s plan or intention to address the most urgent grievances of the Tamils affected by the war,” Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, South Asia researcher at Amnesty International, said. “And the truth about the forcibly disappeared features high on the agenda of those in the North and the East.”

Still, some, like 48-year-old Krishnapillai Sothilakshmi, remain hopeful. Sothilakshmi’s husband Senthivel was forcibly disappeared in 2008. She said she believed the new government would give her answers.

A 2017 report by Amnesty International [PDF] estimated that between 60,000 and 100,000 people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s. Although Sri Lanka established an Office of Missing Persons (OMP) in 2017, there has been no clear progress since.

“We need answers. Are they alive or not? We want to know,” Sothilakshmi said.

But for Jeevarani, weeping on the beach as she looked at a photograph of her three-year-old daughter Nila, it’s too late for any hope. Palm trees are growing over her family’s grave, and she is no longer even able to pinpoint the exact spot where they were buried.

“If someone is sick, this government or that government can say they’ll cure them,” she said. “But no government can bring back the dead, can they?”

East African rights groups condemn Tanzania, saying human right activists ‘abandoned’ at border show signs of torture.

A Ugandan human rights activist, arrested in Tanzania after travelling to the country to support an opposition politician at a trial for treason, has been tortured and dumped at the border, according to an NGO.

Ugandan rights group Agora Discourse said on Friday that activist and journalist Agather Atuhaire had been “abandoned at the border by Tanzanian authorities” and showed signs of torture.

The statement echoes reports regarding a Kenyan activist detained at the same time and released a day earlier, and supports complaints of a crackdown on democracy across East Africa.

Atuhaire had travelled to Tanzania alongside Kenyan anticorruption campaigner Boniface Mwangi to support opposition leader Tundu Lissu, who appeared in court on Monday.

Both were arrested shortly after the hearing and held incommunicado.

Tanzanian police had initially told local rights groups that the pair would be deported by air. However, Mwangi was discovered on Thursday on a roadside in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border.

Agora Discourse said it was “relieved to inform the public that Agather has been found”. However, the rights group’s cofounder Jim Spire Ssentongo confirmed to the AFP news agency on Friday that there were “indications of torture”.

‘Worse than dogs’

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has been accused of increasing authoritarianism, amid rising concerns regarding democracy across East Africa.

Activists travelling to Lissu’s trail accused Tanzania of “collaborating” with Kenya and Uganda in their “total erosion of democratic principles”.

Several high-profile political arrests have highlighted the rights record of Hassan, who plans to seek re-election in October.

The Tanzanian leader has said that her government is committed to respecting human rights. However, she warned earlier this week that foreign activists would not be tolerated in the country as Lissu appeared in court.

“Do not allow ill-mannered individuals from other countries to cross the line here,” Hassan instructed security services.

Several activists from Kenya, including a former justice minister, said they were denied entry to Tanzania as they tried to travel to attend the trial.

Following his return to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Mwangi said that he and Atuhaire had suffered a brutal experience.

“We were both treated worse than dogs, chained, blindfolded and underwent a very gruesome torture,” he told reporters.

“The Government of Tanzania cannot hide behind national sovereignty to justify committing serious crimes and human rights violations against its own citizens and other East Africans,” the International Commission of Jurists in Kenya said in a statement.

President Yoweri Museveni’s government has frequently defended military trials, citing national security concerns.

Uganda’s parliament has passed a controversial bill authorising military tribunals for civilians, drawing condemnation from opposition figures and rights groups, who accuse the government of trying to silence opponents, which it denies.

The practice has long been used in Uganda, but was struck down by the country’s top court in January. The Supreme Court had ruled that the military tribunals lacked legal competence to try civilians and failed to meet fair trial standards.

Despite that ruling, lawmakers moved ahead Tuesday with the legislation, which permits civilians to be tried in military courts.

“Today, you proved you are fearless patriots! Uganda will remember your courage and commitment,” said General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, head of the military and son of President Yoweri Museveni, in a post on X.

Earlier this month, Kainerugaba said that he was holding a missing opposition activist in his basement and threatened violence against him, after the man’s party said he was abducted.

Museveni’s government has frequently defended military trials as necessary for national security amid concerns about armed opposition and alleged threats to state stability.

Military spokesperson Chris Magezi said the legislation would “deal decisively with armed violent criminals, deter the formation of militant political groups that seek to subvert democratic processes, and ensure national security is bound on a firm foundational base”.

But critics say the move is part of a broader pattern of repression. “There’s no legal basis to provide for the trial of civilians in the military court,” opposition MP Jonathan Odur told parliament during debate on the bill. He described the legislation as “shallow, unreasonable and unconstitutional”.

Uganda has for years used military courts to prosecute opposition politicians and government critics.

In 2018, pop star-turned-opposition-leader Bobi Wine was charged in a military court with illegal possession of firearms. The charges were later dropped.

Kizza Besigye, a veteran opposition figure who has challenged Museveni in multiple elections, was arrested in Kenya last year and returned to Uganda to face a military tribunal.

Following the Supreme Court’s January ruling, his trial was moved to a civilian court. His party, the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF), has denounced the charges as politically motivated.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has previously criticised Uganda’s military courts for failing to meet international standards of judicial independence and fairness.

Oryem Nyeko, senior Africa researcher at HRW, said earlier this year: “The Ugandan authorities have for years misused military courts to crack down on opponents and critics”.

Ruth Eleonora López has defended Venezuelan immigrants deported to El Salvador by US President Trump’s administration.

A prominent human rights lawyer known for defending immigrants deported amid United States President Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration policies has been arrested in El Salvador.

Ruth Eleonora López, 47, a senior figure at the rights group Cristosal and a vocal critic of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally, was detained late on Sunday.

The arrest was confirmed by the country’s attorney general’s office, which in an online post accused López of embezzling state funds during her time at El Salvador’s electoral court more than a decade ago.

“Neither her family nor her legal team has managed to find out her whereabouts,” Cristosal said in a statement, calling the refusal to disclose her location or allow access to lawyers “a blatant violation of due process”.

The group said her arrest “raises serious concerns about the increasing risks faced by human rights defenders in El Salvador”.

López has publicly criticised the government’s mass incarceration of alleged gang members, many of whom have not been charged.

Cristosal, one of the most prominent human rights groups in Latin America, has assisted Salvadoran families caught in Bukele’s security policies, as well as more than 250 Venezuelan immigrants who have been deported to El Salvador under Trump’s administration.

Bukele, who has called himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and has cultivated close ties with Trump, said earlier this year that El Salvador is ready to house US prisoners in a sprawling mega-prison opened last year.

In March, Trump used rarely invoked wartime powers to send dozens of Venezuelans to El Salvador without trial, alleging ties to the Tren de Aragua gang – a charge their families and lawyers deny.

The US Supreme Court on Friday barred the Trump administration from quickly resuming swift deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

In April, Cristosal reported that police had entered its offices during a news conference to film and photograph journalists and staff members – part of what observers say is a broader campaign of harassment and intimidation against civil society organisations and independent media.

López was recognised by the BBC as one of the world’s 100 most inspiring and influential women for her commitment to justice and the rule of law.

A joint statement signed by more than a dozen rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, demanded her immediate release.

“El Salvador’s state of exception has not only been used to address gang-related violence but also as a tool to silence critical voices,” the statement said.

“Authoritarianism has increased in recent years as President Nayib Bukele has undermined institutions and the rule of law, and persecuted civil society organizations and independent journalists,” it added.

A hundred years after the birth of Malcolm X, and in the shadow of a second Donald Trump presidency, Ibram X Kendi – author of the international bestseller How to Be an Antiracist – returns to the meaning of Malcolm’s legacy in his newest book. What does it reveal about where the US is now, and what still needs to be said about race in America?

Two-year-old Maikelys Espinoza Bernal was reunited with her mother in Venezuela following calls for her return.

A Venezuelan toddler who was separated from her parents after they crossed the United States-Mexico border together has been returned to Venezuela, to where her mother was deported in April.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thanked the administration of United States President Donald Trump for the return on Wednesday of two-year-old Maikelys Espinoza Bernal to her mother, Yorely Bernal.

“We must be thankful for all the efforts, for [Trump special envoy] Rich Grenell for his efforts … and thank Donald Trump, too,” Maduro said, calling the child’s return “an act of justice”.

Both of the toddler’s parents were accused by the Trump administration of involvement with the Tren de Aragua gang, a claim for which the government has offered no evidence and is firmly denied by family members.

The child’s father, 25-year-old Maiker Espinoza, was among at least 137 Venezuelans sent to a prison in El Salvador in March.

Venezuelan officials had sought the return of Maikelys, and footage shown on state television showed First Lady Cilia Flores holding Maikelys after she arrived at an international airport near the capital of Caracas.

The child was reunited with her mother and grandmother in an event at the presidential palace attended by Maduro, who has voiced occasional criticism of Trump’s deportation push but reached an agreement in March to receive Venezuelans deported from the US.

The Trump administration has invoked sometimes vague and unsubstantiated claims of Tren de Aragua membership to send Venezuelan migrants to CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador, notorious for abusive conditions, without due process under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

The toddler’s father, 25-year-old Maiker Espinoza, has been accused by the Trump administration, without evidence, of being a “lieutenant” in Tren de Aragua who oversees “homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking and operates a torture house”.

“At no time has my son been involved with them,” his mother, Maria Escalona, told the news agency Reuters this month, of claims that her son is a member of Tren de Aragua. “I think this is political – they are using the case of my son to cover up the horror that is being committed against all these innocents.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also accused Yorely Bernal of recruiting young women for narcotics smuggling and sex work, but has not provided any evidence for those claims and deported her to Venezuela in April.

The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime law that grants the president powers to expeditiously expel people from the country without usual protections, under the pretext that irregular migration to the US constitutes a foreign “invasion”.

A report by the US intelligence community found no evidence for public claims by the Trump administration that Tren de Aragua was coordinating activities with the Maduro government as part of a clandestine attack on the United States.

On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two top members of the intelligence body that authored that assessment.

Human rights groups say politicians have been forcibly disappeared in recent days

Mali’s military government has dissolved all political parties after accusations from rights groups that opposition figures have been arrested.

Assimi Goita, who seized power in two army coups in 2020 and 2021, validated the decision after it was broadcast to Malians in a televised statement on Tuesday.

The parties were disbanded after demonstrations this month, demanding the country returned to democratic rule.

Protesters gathered on May 3 and 4, carrying placards with slogans reading, “Down with dictatorship, long live democracy,” in a rare public rebuke of the military government, which had promised to hold elections in 2022.

A national conference held in April recommended extending Goita’s presidency until 2030, drawing condemnation from opposition figures and human rights groups.

In response to another protest that had been planned on Friday, the military government issued a decree suspending all political activities across the country.

The move forced opposition groups to cancel the demonstration, and the government has now tightened its grip further.

The clampdown has coincided with reports of disappearances of opposition figures. Human rights groups said several politicians have been forcibly disappeared in recent days.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Abba Alhassane, the secretary-general of the Convergence for the Development of Mali (CODEM), was “arrested” by “masked gunmen”.

That same day, El Bachir Thiam, the leader of the Yelema party, was reportedly seized by unidentified men in Kati, a town outside the capital.

On Tuesday, a CODEM member speaking on condition of anonymity told the Reuters news agency that the party had lost contact with Abdoul Karim Traore, a youth leader, and feared he too had been abducted.

Malian authorities have not commented on the reported arrests.

Goita first seized power in August 2020 amid escalating attacks from armed groups affiliated with ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

In July 2020, protests against the former civilian government were violently repressed with at least 14 people killed during a crackdown by security forces.

The military then ousted the elected government, citing its failure to tackle the armed groups.

In December last year, HRW reported that Malian soldiers alongside Russian Wagner Group fighters “deliberately killed” at least 32 civilians and burned more than 100 homes in central and northern Mali.