Donald Trump nominated on Saturday Amy Coney Barrett for the US Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Barrett is a federal appeals court judge known for her conservative legal positions on key issues.

Barrett, 48, was appointed by Trump to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. She has proven reliably conservative in that post, voting in favor of one of Trump’s hardline immigration policies and showing support for expansive gun rights. She also authored a ruling making it easier for college students accused of campus sexual assaults to sue their institutions.

Abortion rights groups have expressed concern that Barrett would vote as a justice to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion nationwide.

Although she has not yet ruled directly on abortion, Barrett twice signaled opposition to rulings that struck down Republican-backed Indiana abortion-related restrictions – one in 2018 requiring fetal remains to be buried or cremated after an abortion, the other in 2019 involving parental notification – voting to have those decisions reconsidered.

Religious dogma

In February 2019, Barrett joined a ruling that upheld a Chicago measure that places limits on anti-abortion activists gathered outside abortion clinics. The ruling, written by Judge Diane Sykes, said the court had to apply Supreme Court precedent.

During her 2017 confirmation hearing for her current post, US Senator Dianne Feinstein told Barrett, “The dogma lives loudly within you”. Barrett said her religious faith would not affect her decisions as a judge.

In June, Barrett dissented when a three-judge panel ruled in favor of a challenge to Trump’s policy to deny legal permanent residency to certain immigrants deemed likely to require government assistance in the future. In January, the Supreme Court, powered by its conservative majority, allowed the policy to take effect.

She also authored a ruling that makes it easier for college students who have been accused of sexual assault to challenge how their schools dealt with their cases. Barrett and her colleagues revived a lawsuit by a male student who had been suspended from Purdue University after sexual assault allegations. He accused the school of discriminating against him on the basis of his gender.

She wrote that in the case it was plausible Purdue officials chose to believe the female accuser “because she is a woman” and to disbelieve the male student accused “because he is a man.”

Barrett indicated support for gun rights in a 2019 dissent when she objected to the court ruling that a nonviolent felon could be permanently prohibited from possessing a firearm.

“Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons,” Barrett wrote.

Conservative record

Barrett, born in New Orleans, received her law degree from Notre Dame Law School, a Catholic institution in Indiana. She is a devout Catholic. She is married to Jesse Barrett, a lawyer in private practice and a former federal prosecutor in Indiana. They have seven children, two of whom were adopted from Haiti.

She previously served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a stalwart conservative who died in 2016.

In a 1998 law journal article she and another author said that Catholic judges who are faithful to their church’s teachings are morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty and should recuse themselves in certain cases.

Abortion rights groups, worried about preserving the 1973 ruling that a woman has a constitutional right to have an abortion, point to a 2003 law journal article in which Barrett argued that courts could be more flexible in overturning prior “errors” in precedent.

Barrett has also spoken publicly about her conviction that life begins at conception, according to a 2013 article in Notre Dame Magazine.

Her writings also signal views on other contentious topics including healthcare. In a law review article published in 2017, she criticized conservative Chief Justice John Robert’s major 2012 ruling preserving Obamacare.

“Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute,” Barrett wrote.

‘People of Praise’

Barrett and her family have been members of a Christian religious group called People of Praise, according to other members.

Craig Lent, the group’s overall coordinator, said in 2018 that the organisation, which is officially ecumenical but whose membership is mostly Catholic, centers on close Christian bonds and looking out for one another. They also share a preference for charismatic worship, which can involve speaking in tongues.

Certain leadership positions are reserved for men. And while married men receive spiritual and other advice from other male group members, married women depend on their husbands for the same advice, Lent said.

“We’re not unaware that could be misunderstood. Every member is free and responsible for their own decisions. No one should be servile, no one should be domineering,” Lent said.

Some women in leadership positions used to be called handmaids, but now are referred to as “women leaders,” Lent said, to avoid the perception of servility.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)

Cameroonian women have been waiting for over six months, according to This Is Lebanon.

After the terrifying explosion on August 4th, Cameroonian women began to protest at their Consulate in Dbayeh, north of Beirut.

They are accusing the consulate of intentionally blocking the repatriation process of Cameroonian women stranded in Lebanon.

According to the activist group, each woman paid $800 to Honorary Consul Jean Abboud in order to process their Emergency Travel Certificate but they were given no confirmation about when they will be able to return home.

The process has been tedious with no end in sight.

Furthermore, the stranded women have complained of being mistreated by their consulate and facing discrimination by the Honorary Consul’s Secretary, Georgette Chidiac, saying that she doesn’t treat them as humans.

“She should work for us,” they said. “The Cameroonian government pays her each month.”

The Cameroonian women have since reached out to the General Security for help and were asked to provide a full list of names of those who need Emergency Travel Certificate.

However, the Consulate reportedly refused aid and “interference from outside.”

The activist group shared a WhatsApp conversation of a woman from New Zealand inquiring with the consulate about the status of the women.

The consulate’s reply seems ambiguous, and what could be understood from it is the consulate’s claim that the girls are its responsibility and that they are illegal, and some blame directed at “mafia.”

It is unclear, though, why the consulate is unwilling to provide the list of names and hand over the repatriation process to Lebanon’s General Security.

Recently, General Security took over the repatriation process of stranded Kenyan workers who also accused their consulate of mistreating them.

They have also facilitated the successful home-return of 48 Ethiopians, all thanks to “outside interference,” which is basically the local authorities and activists, and the International Organization for Migration.

However, good news has come. The961 was able to get in touch with the social initiative Help_Them_Home which said, “General Security has said as of Monday they will start to process the documents for the women, bypassing the consulate.”

A 25-year-old Cameroonian man has been sentenced to half a year in prison after being caught with someone else’s French passport.

The Germany-based man was caught trying to travel to the UK, after being informed that it would be easier to do so from Malta than Germany.

He will be deported after serving jail time.

Magistrate Joe Mifsud lamented that the court is seeing victims of criminals selling illicit passports and called for a more organised crackdown on those perpetuating human trafficking.

Figures of people attempting to enter and leave Malta with false identification documents have tripled in the last year. In fact, 159 people were caught with forged IDs in 2019, a significant jump from just 62 charged in court in 2018.

Meanwhile, police believe that a ring of criminals producing illicit immigration documents in West Africa may be behind a surge in arrests, which grew once Malta’s borders reopened after COVID-19 lockdown.

In fact, more than 70 have been arrested for the crime in the first half of this year.

Source: Lovin Malta

Cameroon’s journalism association has called on authorities to immediately and unconditionally release journalists detained while covering anti-government protests this week.

Police detained at least eight journalists covering Tuesday’s protests, searched the homes of four of them, and seized or destroyed their equipment. At least one journalist was still in custody Thursday.

Tah Javis Mai, a freelance journalist, returned Thursday to his office in the English-speaking southwestern Cameroon town of Buea. Mai said he was arrested by police in the French-speaking coastal city of Douala on Tuesday while reporting on protests against President Paul Biya.

“The men in uniform asked that why am I using my phone to film them,” Mai said in a telephone call from Buea. “I said I am on a Skype call. They took us to that brigade in Bonaberi. One drinking alcohol poured the whiskey on me. He asked me to drink, and I refused. He poured it on my head. We were in an airtight cell. A cell for about two people, we were 15 in number with no food. Our phones were confiscated. They took everything from us.”   

Mai said he was forced to sit on the ground for seven hours. He said he was released at 6 p.m. Wednesday after pressure from journalism associations and several international rights groups.

Jude Viban, president of the Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists, said Mai was arrested with seven other reporters in Yaounde and Douala.

Those arrested included My Media Prime TV cameraman Tebong Christian, cameraman Rodrigue Ngassi of Equinox TV, Lindovi Ndjio of La Nouvelle Expression, and Polycarpe Essomba, Cameroon correspondent of RFI.

“We have strongly condemned the arrest of our colleagues who went out to report and not to support the protest, and they were picked up arbitrarily and detained in facilities without communication, without access to their lawyers, without access to their colleagues,” Viban said. “This is terrible for our democracy and, unfortunately, it keeps happening. It is a very difficult period to be a journalist in Cameroon.”

On Thursday, the National Syndicate of Cameroon Journalists reported that the homes of four journalists were searched by police. The report said phones, recorders and computers were seized.

Rights activist Andelbert Mvomo said Cameroon is becoming notorious for its abuses on journalists, including beatings and rights violations.

Such acts, he said, soil Cameroon’s image and disgrace its people.

Cameroonian police and the minister of territorial administration did not react to the accusations when contacted by VOA.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday that police were still holding one of the arrested journalists, Lindovi Ndjio.

Samuel Wazizi

CPJ said it has not forgotten what happened to journalist Samuel Wazizi, who died in police custody in August 2019 but whose body has yet to be seen.  

The military said it was keeping Wazizi’s body for investigations.

Source: VOA

A video showing soldiers executing two women at close range, kneeling and blindfolded, along with a girl and a baby two years ago had caused massive outcry in Cameroon. But there is even more outcry now.

At the time, the government denied any involvement before recanting and arresting seven soldiers.

Four of them have now received a 10-year prison sentence for the killing. Another, sentenced to two years. The last two acquitted. Human rights groups are disgusted.

Maximilienne Ngo Mbe is the Director of the Network of Human Rights Defenders in Central Africa.

“A ten-year prison sentence is not only weak, it is insignificant. It is not only insignificant, but it is insignificant because those who get ten years are not, in fact, those who ordered the murders.” the human rights campaigner explains.

The defence counsel however in fact wants to appeal the verdict. Me Sylvestre Mben is a lawyer for the incriminated soldiers. He says “we should not forget a legal provision in our procedural code which states that the allegations of one co-accused against another can only be valid if they are confronted by other evidence. It is for this reason that we believe that there was, at the very least, some doubt.”

The video was one of several to emerge in recent years of alleged atrocities by Cameroonian forces during operations against Islamist Boko Haram militants in the northern part of the country and against Anglophone separatists in the west.

The trial started in January and was conducted behind closed doors.

Source: Africa News

Police on Tuesday used tear gas and water cannon to break up a protest by hundreds of people in Cameroon’s economic capital Douala calling for an end to bloodshed in the country’s anglophone regions.

Several parties, including that of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, had called for “peaceful marches” against President Paul Biya, 87, who has ruled the central African country with an iron fist for nearly 40 years.

The marchers called for a ceasefire and negotiations to end a long-running conflict between anglophone separatists and security forces that has claimed more than 3,000 lives.

The protesters also sought a reform to the electoral system.

They converged at a major intersection in a working-class district of Douala, shouting slogans such as “Enough Is Enough” and “Paul Biya Must Go” before police dispersed them, making some arrests.

The police and soldiers had taken up positions in several cities the night before.

On August 24, Kamto, head of the Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) and runner-up to Biya in a 2018 election, labelled his government a “kleptocracy”.

He accused Biya of “ruling through disdain and terror” and urged a “giant campaign calling for the pure and simple departure of Mr Paul Biya from power”.

Biya on September 7 called regional elections for December 6 — prompting the call for Tuesday’s marches.

Meanwhile in Paris, about 50 Kamto supporters who demonstrated Tuesday outside the Cameroonian embassy were met with tear gas after clashing with France’s CRS riot police, an AFP journalist saw.

Protesters waved Cameroonian flags and held posters reading “Chase away the Tyrant” and called for the end of “Francafrique”, the term for France’s post-colonial meddling in Africa.

Some threw chairs from a nearby restaurant at police, and traffic was blocked as officers repeatedly dispersed the crowd.

Source: Africa

Police and gendarmes in Cameroon used tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters calling for an end to President Paul Biya’s near 40-year rule in the commercial hub of Douala on Tuesday, Reuters witnesses said.

The protest was called by Biya’s rival Maurice Kamto of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement party, who hopes to spark a popular revolt, the likes of which have been seen in other African nations such as Mali and Burkina Faso.

Security forces have in recent days packed the streets of Cameroon’s largest cities, including the capital Yaounde, in anticipation of the planned demonstrations, raising concerns among residents of a return to the kind of violent crackdowns that have met protests in recent years.

Hundreds of people gathered in the busy Ndokoti commercial district of Douala on Tuesday morning chanting “Biya must go!”. Police, camped out in trucks at major intersections, chased some of the protesters across the neighbourhood and into their houses, the witnesses said.

Long a bastion of calm in a turbulent region, Cameroon has descended into chaos in recent years as Biya fights Islamist insurgents in its far north and separatist rebels in the west.

Biya is also under pressure from young political activists in urban centres who want change, and say the 87-year-old has stolen elections and is the mastermind of a series of deadly backlashes against those who oppose him. The Cameroon government denies those charges.

Biya won a 2018 election that his closest rival Kamto said was fraudulent. Kamto was jailed for nine months in 2019 on insurrection charges following a protest. He was later pardoned, but his arrest galvanised the opposition and has led to sporadic protests ever since.

Source: Reuters