Critical State: First Amendment Protections? Not So Fast
If you read just one thing this week … read about the US crackdown on free speech.
In The Guardian, Thomas Anthony Durkin and Bernard Harcourt broke down an alarming crackdown on free speech in the United States. The United States Department of Justice recently said it would launch what it calls “Joint Task Force October 7 (JTF 10-7),” which will aim to hold accountable Hamas leaders who planned the deadly attacks on Israel in 2023.
But in the press release announcing JTF 10-7, the DOJ also said it would go after “individuals and entities providing support and financing to Hamas, related Iran proxies, and their affiliates, as well as acts of antisemitism by these groups.” In other words, per Durkin and Harcourt, federal authorities might be looking to target student protesters, universities, and colleges.
“What most people might assume is First Amendment-protected speech and advocacy can be misconstrued by the government as assistance or propaganda provided under the direction of [a Foreign Terrorist Organization], and thus criminally prosecuted under the material-support-to-terrorism statutes,” the authors pointed out.
It’s not just a hypothetical scenario, either. In the past, protected free speech has been turned into evidence in cases where the government wanted to prove intent or motive while prosecuting material support cases. More alarming still? Well, sentencing guidelines in such cases generally call for 20 years in prison.
At the moment, the most obvious DOJ target is Palestine solidarity protesters, especially those who rallied on university and college campuses across the country as Israel ramped up its longest and deadliest war on Gaza in history. But there’s no reason to assume it would stop there, Durkin and Harcourt warned: “As evidenced by Donald Trump’s 180-degree pivot against Ukraine and our closest European allies, the situation could change in a heartbeat.”
You might expect university administrations to stand up against what the authors dubbed a clear-cut case of suppressing free speech. “But by and large, they have abdicated this responsibility,” they wrote. “They must now make it part of their mission to protect students in this new reality. They should not disavow international students who face immigration reprisals, nor take adversarial action against their students to protect only themselves.”
If You Read One More Thing: Border Theater … Across Borders
In The Border Chronicle, Pablo de la Rosa wrote about the Trump administration’s campaign to deport millions of people — and the civil liberties crisis the Department of Homeland Security’s expanded powers have unleashed. Now, that crisis has migrated south.
The number of people locked up in immigrant detention is at its highest since 2019, de la Rosa explained. “But the effort doesn’t end on the US side,” the article pointed out. “The Trump administration is exporting its draconian approach to border enforcement to Mexico through aggressive political pressure and drastic reductions in NGO funding.”
Since 2019, the Mexican National Guard has stood accused of human rights violations against migrants south of the border. “And since Biden’s last year in office, migrants are detained and forcibly relocated deeper into Mexico,” he added. “Some are even pushed across the border into Guatemala.”
Toxic Legacy
At Searchlight New Mexico, Alicia Inez Guzmán took a hard look at the “toxic legacy” of Cold War-era uranium mining and milling in New Mexico.
In the small town of Grants, in western New Mexico, locals are still grappling with the malignant impact of uranium mining and milling. The uranium eventually served to “help make America’s Cold War fleet of nuclear weapons or to power nuclear reactors,” Guzmán explained. “The leftover slurry was piped into two unlined earthen pits, the largest the size of 50 football fields and filled with over 21 million tons of uranium mill tailings.”
The problem? The uranium tailings turned into radon gas over time, and the aquifers were contaminated by radioactive materials. Cancer rates jumped in the area, and the EPA found that the closer residents lived to the mill, the more likely they were to develop cancer.
“We’ve been poisoned to the gills,” a county commissioner told Searchlight New Mexico. “The question is: How do we recover and live with contamination?”
Deep Dive: Unnecessary Suffering
Since Israel launched its full-scale war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, rights groups, watchdogs, and activists have routinely pointed to bombings and other attacks that have hit hospitals. In turn, Israel has claimed these strikes were justified because, in its words, Hamas and other armed groups have taken refuge in civilian infrastructure like medical facilities.
A new Human Rights Watch report takes a different tack, examining what happens to patients and staff inside hospitals when Israeli forces take over such facilities. In short, the global watchdog concluded that Israeli forces have “caused deaths and unnecessary suffering of Palestinian patients while occupying hospitals” in the besieged enclave.
In other words, according to HRW, Israeli forces have undertaken actions in hospitals that amount to war crimes.
Drawing on testimony from witnesses at three different hospitals, HRW explained that Israeli military forces had forced patients to go without electricity, food, and medicine. They had also “shot civilians,” “mistreated health workers,” and “deliberately destroyed medical facilities and equipment.” On top of that, Israeli troops had carried out forced evacuations that both left hospitals out of operations and doomed patients to “grave risk.”
Published on March 20, the report came on the heels of Israel’s decision to abandon a ceasefire that came into effect two months earlier and launch a far-reaching series of attacks across the Strip, killing hundreds.
Quoted in the report, HRW’s Bill Van Esveld said Israeli soldiers had deployed “deadly cruelty” against Palestinian hospital patients. “The Israeli military’s denial of water and electricity left sick and wounded people to die,” he added, “while soldiers mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and damaged and destroyed hospitals.”
To make matters more alarming still, HRW says that Israeli authorities have not publicly announced the opening of any investigations into alleged war crimes and other accusations of international law violations.
At the Nasser hospital, the report explained, one witness recounted grim details. Ansam al-Sharif had already lost a leg in an Israeli airstrike, but when Israeli troops occupied the facility, she reportedly witnessed the deaths of four other patients. “We stayed there for four days with no food, water, or medicines,” she told the rights group.
Another witness, a 23-year-old woman, recounted the Israeli takeover of al-Shifa Hospital. The woman, who was seven months pregnant, had already seen an Israeli munition kill her husband, mother-in-law, and another relative. The strike left her with an amputated leg.
On Nov. 15, two days after she gave birth to a stillborn girl, Israeli forces raided and occupied the facility, according to the report. She told the watchdog that Israeli soldiers fired “a sound [flash-bang] grenade and a smoke grenade through the windows to force people to go downstairs.”
Israeli military later interrogated some Palestinian staff and patients at al-Shifa, HRW said. Such incidents, the report suggested, have been routine throughout the war on Gaza.
Whenever Israeli forces forcibly evacuated hospitals, per HRW, they “only rarely” transferred patients to other medical facilities. “After Israeli forces evacuated some hospital buildings,” the report added, “they unlawfully burned or destroyed them.”
Palestinian journalists and human rights observers have documented similar Israeli actions throughout the war. The HRW report added that attacking hospitals and medical workers violate international humanitarian law.
On top of that, the watchdog noted, “A force that has seized a hospital must actively facilitate the delivery of medical supplies and equipment and not deprive the hospital of other vital resources such as electricity or water.”
Show Us the Receipts
The Trump administration’s foreign funding cuts have rippled across much of the world, and Iraqi Kurdistan’s small-but-strong independent media scene is no exception. As Winthrop Rodgers reported at Inkstick, Iraqi Kurdistan’s journalistic watchdogs depend on foreign funding to remain nonpartisan. Now, they’re “grappling with the fallout” amid an uncertain future.
In December, Syrian rebels ousted longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad after more than 13 years of civil war. Months on, the US has yet to lift sanctions on Syria, Zaher Sahloul noted, despite the fact that it’s now under new leadership. “By lifting sanctions, advocating for representative government, supporting transitional justice, and fostering economic recovery,” he argued, “the US can help Syrians reclaim their future.”
In March 1995, a shadowy Japanese cult known as Aum Shinrikyo put sarin gas in subway cars, killing 14 people and injuring some 6,000. It was Japan’s worst terrorist attack, Aya Asakura reported at The World. The cult later broke into two groups, and it still exists today. ““This was a terrible terrorist attack,” an advocate told The World. “I want young people to be aware of [Aum Shinrikyo], so they don’t become followers too.”
Behind the Scenes at Inkstick
Clara, a longtime Inkstick assistant, has recently decided to up her professional attire:
Critical State is written by Inkstick Media in collaboration with The World.
The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news, and insights from PRX and GBH.
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Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.