Responding to news that Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers have detained Ivan Pavlov, a human rights lawyer defending the Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by Aleksei Navalny, Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Moscow Office Director, said:

“Lawyers are the last line of defence against the government’s growing crackdown on human rights, and now the authorities are going after one of the country’s most courageous lawyers. They accused him of disclosing information about cases they are arbitrarily treating as a state secret. This is a travesty of justice. The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Ivan Pavlov from arbitrary detention.

“Targeting lawyers who defend victims of politically motivated prosecutions has become a dangerous trend in Russia, especially in the North Caucasus. Rarely has it being done in such a brazen manner, with open FSB involvement, as with Ivan Pavlov. If the international community was waiting for a signal to sound the alarm, then that time has come. Ivan Pavlov and his brave Team 29 have helped countless people. Now they themselves need our solidarity and support.”

“Lawyers should never be arrested simply for peacefully exercising their human rights and discharging their professional duties. Russian authorities must end the crackdown on the legal profession, and respect, protect, promote and fulfil the human rights of everyone.”

Background

Ivan Pavlov, human rights lawyer and the head of the human rights group Komanda 29 (Team 29), has worked on numerous high-profile cases including that of Ivan Safronov, a former journalist charged with state treason, and is now representing Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation in the “extremism” case against it. He was detained in the early hours of 30 April after a raid on the hotel where he was staying in Moscow. He was apprehended by the officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB).

According to Team 29, Ivan Pavlov is charged with “disclosure of materials of the preliminary investigation” (Article 310 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). It is not yet known under which case he is being prosecuted. The Russian authorities have arbitrarily classified a lot of criminal cases as secret and closed trials to the public, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation case.

If found guilty, he could face up to two years of compulsory labour and might be disbarred.

Remember when you were told that a Supreme Court with six Republican-appointed Justices would consistently favor conservative outcomes? Well, this week the Justices sided with California against Texas and 19 other mostly red states in declining to hear a challenge to progressive cultural imperialism.

In 2017 a California law went into effect instructing the Attorney General to blacklist states with less progressive policies on gay rights, transgender policy or religious liberty. Texas was identified because it does not compel religious child-welfare organizations to place children with same-sex parents if that violates their conscience.

The California law bars the use of public funds for travel to any of the 12 states on the list. Texas explained in its petition last year that at least two academic conferences in Houston were disrupted as students and scholars from California’s public universities couldn’t get funding. Politicians have had to use campaign funds rather than state dollars to travel to cities like Nashville in boycotted Tennessee.

Texas said such travel restrictions violate the Commerce Clause, which limits the ability of states to discriminate economically against their peers. It asked the Justices to invoke their original jurisdiction to block California’s economic coercion.

The Justices on Monday turned Texas down, but Justice Samuel Alito, in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued that the Court should  settle more such disputes.

“Breakfast Club” radio host DJ Envy is facing down a backlash after comments he made in support of the police officer who shot and killed Ma’Khia Bryant last week.

By a 6-3 vote, the court sided with Agusto Niz-Chavez, a Guatemalan immigrant who has been in the United States since 2005.

WASHINGTON — An unusual coalition of Supreme Court justices joined Thursday to rule in favor of an immigrant fighting deportation in a case that the court said turned on the meaning of the shortest word, “a.”

By a 6-3 vote, the court sided with Agusto Niz-Chavez, a Guatemalan immigrant who has been in the United States since 2005. Eight years later, he received a notice to appear at a deportation hearing but this notice did not include a date or time. Two months after that, a second notice instructed him when and where to show up.

By sending notice of a deportation hearing, the government can stop the clock on immigrants hoping to show they have been in the United States for at least 10 straight years. The 10-year mark makes it easier under federal law to ask to be allowed to remain in the country.

The court was deciding whether immigration officials had to include all the relevant information in a single notice.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his majority opinion that they do, criticizing the government’s “notice by installment.”

Two other conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, signed on, as did the court’s three liberal members, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. The case was argued in November during the Trump administration.

“Anyone who has applied for a passport, filed for Social Security benefits, or sought a license understands the government’s affinity for forms. Make a mistake or skip a page? Go back and try again, sometimes with a penalty for the trouble. But it turns out the federal government finds some of its forms frustrating too,” Gorsuch wrote.

A 1996 immigration law specifies “a notice to appear” for people the government wants to deport, Gorsuch said.

“At first blush, a notice to appear might seem to be just that — a single document containing all the information an individual needs to know about his removal hearing. But, the government says, supplying so much information in a single form is too taxing. It needs more flexibility, allowing its officials to provide information in separate mailings (as many as they wish) over time (as long as they find convenient),” he wrote.

The American Medical Association urged governors Monday to take a stand against laws banning transgender surgeries and procedures for minors.

American Medical Association (AMA) CEO James Madara sent an open letter to the National Governors Association Monday calling laws banning transgender surgeries for minors “a dangerous governmental intrusion into the practice of medicine,” noting that transgender and nonbinary gender identities “are normal variations of human identity and expression,” according to NBC News. […]

Continue reading American Medical Association CEO calls laws banning kids trans surgeries ‘dangerous governmental intrusion’ …

Joy Behar claimed Thursday that Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott didn’t seem to understand the difference between a “racist country” and “systemic racism.”

Behar reacted to both President Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress and Scott’s rebuttal during the opening segment of ABC’s “The View.”

Cohost Whoopi Goldberg asked Behar to weigh in on Scott’s claim that the United States “is not a racist country.”

“Joy, what country is Tim Scott living in?” Goldberg asked.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday reacted to Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s congressional address.

In responding to Biden Wednesday, Scott pushed back against the notion of the United States being a “racist country.” His comments were met with backlash from Democrats and members of the media.

In an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Harris agreed with Scott about the country not being “racist,” but emphasized the importance of speaking “truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today.”

Washington — According to the Washington Times — also known as the Good Times — last week, the Biden administration made plans “to offer grants for U.S. history classes that teach critical race theory and the ‘1619 Project,'” which is a confection of The New York Times. Both critical race theory and “The 1619 Project” are based on the fundamental insight that slavery is, according to the Washington Times, “the centerpiece of the American narrative.”