Indian farmers observe ‘black day’ in fight over new agricultural laws

Farmers burned an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Wednesday while observing a “black day” to mark six months of protests against controversial new agricultural laws. (Supplied)
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Updated 28 May 2021
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Indian farmers observe ‘black day’ in fight over new agricultural laws

  • Effigies of PM Narendra Modi were burned during demonstrations marking six months of protests against deregulation of farming sector

NEW DELHI: Farmers in the Indian capital New Delhi and surrounding areas observed a “black day” on Wednesday to mark six months of protests against agricultural laws they say favor private businesses at the expense of the growers they buy from.

Thousands of farmers from the mostly rural states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have set up camp in the outskirts of the capital to protest against three laws that were passed in September.

A few weeks into the protests, which began in late November, their numbers rose to about 300,000 and peaked in January, when nearly a million arrived from across the country, braving scorching heat and fears of coronavirus.

Farmers say the new laws will hit their incomes and leave them at the mercy of corporations because the legislation clears the way for the unregulated entry of private companies into the farming sector, which provides employment for more than 50 percent of the country’s population.

Despite a spike in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks as a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic rages across the country, hundreds converged on Delhi and its surrounding areas on Wednesday to take part in the “black day” demonstrations. Some chanted slogans and burned effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a show of anger, amid complaints that their concerns have been ignored.

“For six months we have been sitting at the protest site but the government has not been listening to us,” Anil Kasana, a leader of the Indian Farmers’ Union in Greater Noida, in the suburbs of Delhi, told Arab News. “We will continue agitating against the three farm laws until they are withdrawn.”

Farmers fear the laws will usher in the privatization of traditional agricultural markets, leading to market-driven pricing of produce and the elimination of the minimum support prices the government sets each year for certain produce.

The government held 10 rounds of talks with farmers and offered to postpone the implementation of the new laws for 15 months in an effort to reach an agreement. However the protesters rejected the offer and continue to demand the laws be revoked. Farmers said that if they continue to put pressure on the authorities, the government will be forced to given in to their demands.

“This is our way to tell the government that despite the pandemic, the farmers’ movement is alive and it has the widespread support of the people,” said Sarwan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, a farmers’ group in Punjab.

At least 40 groups and unions that represent farmers across the country are protesting under the banner of Samyukta Kisan Morcha, or the Joint Farmers’ Forum. On Friday, the group wrote to Modi demanding his “intervention to resume talks” and warning that the failure of the government to give a “constructive response” would lead to “intensified” protests.

Pandher told Arab News: “We knew there wouldn’t be any response from the government. We expressed our intention for talks and if the government does not respond, then it will have to answer to the people. They will have to go to the people sooner or later. Agitation is the only option left to us.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government continues to stand firm on the new laws and said it is up to the farmers to find a way to move forward in the negotiations.

“The unions should either be positive to our offer or provide us with an alternative,” Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Saturday, the day after the farmers delivered their renewed offer of talks to Modi.

Political analysts described the government reaction as “unpragmatic.”

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“Farmers are in for a long haul,” Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a political analyst in New Delhi, told Arab News. “The government of India has made this a matter of the prestige of the prime minister. I don’t think there has been any government that has been so unpragmatic.”

Devinder Sharma, a Punjab-based expert on agriculture, echoed this view and urged the government to be more “magnanimous” and understand the “pain of the farmers.”

“The government should withdraw the laws so that farmers can go home,” he told Arab News. “What is so sacrosanct about these laws?

“If the farmers have put their lives at stake and are protesting for six months, that shows they have a pain that is severe, they have a pain we need to understand, which the nation needs to understand.”

Wednesday’s protests coincided with the seventh anniversary of Modi becoming prime minister.

However Mukhopadhyay said that Modi’s “shortsightedness” in his handling the protests could prove to be “politically costly for him even if he manages to send the farmer back home.”

He explained: “Modi might win the battle against the farmers but he has lost the war to regain their support. The farming communities in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan hold sway over 100 parliamentary constituencies, and the BJP will feel the impact in the next elections.”


Mississippi executes the longest-serving man on the state’s death row for 1976 killing

Updated 26 June 2025
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Mississippi executes the longest-serving man on the state’s death row for 1976 killing

  • Jordan was one of several on the state’s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol, claiming it is inhumane

PARCHMAN, Mississippi: The longest-serving man on Mississippi’s death row was executed Wednesday, nearly five decades after he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer’s wife in a violent ransom scheme.
Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, was put to death by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. The time of death was 6:16 p.m.
Jordan was one of several on the state’s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol, claiming it is inhumane.
The execution was the third in the state in the last 10 years; previously the most recent one was carried out in December 2022.
Jordan’s execution came a day after a man was put to death in Florida, in what is shaping up to be a year with the most executions since 2015.
Jordan, whose final appeals were denied without comment Wednesday afternoon by the US Supreme Court, was sentenced to death in 1976 for killing and kidnapping Edwina Marter.
Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January of that year, Jordan called the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport and asked to speak with a loan officer. After he was told that Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. He then looked up the Marters’ home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter.
According to court records, Jordan took her to a forest and fatally shot her before calling her husband, claiming she was safe and demanding $25,000.
Edwina Marter’s husband and two sons had not planned to attend the execution. Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, said beforehand that other family members would attend.
“It should have happened a long time ago,” Eric Marter told The Associated Press before the execution. “I’m not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
“He needs to be punished,” Marter said.
As of the beginning of the year, Jordan was one of 22 people sentenced in the 1970s who were still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
His execution ended a decades-long court process that included four trials and numerous appeals. On Monday the Supreme Court rejected a petition that argued he was denied due process rights.
“He was never given what for a long time the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,” said lawyer Krissy Nobile, director of Mississippi’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represented Jordan. “Because of that his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.”
A recent petition asking Gov. Tate Reeves for clemency echoed Nobile’s claim. It said Jordan suffered severe PTSD after serving three back-to-back tours, which could have been a factor in his crime.
“His war service, his war trauma, was considered not relevant in his murder trial,” said Franklin Rosenblatt, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, who wrote the petition on Jordan’s behalf. “We just know so much more than we did 10 years ago, and certainly during Vietnam, about the effect of war trauma on the brain and how that affects ongoing behaviors.”
Marter said he does not buy that argument: “I know what he did. He wanted money, and he couldn’t take her with him. And he — so he did what he did.”


Ukraine, European rights body sign accord for tribunal on Russian aggression

Updated 26 June 2025
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Ukraine, European rights body sign accord for tribunal on Russian aggression

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset signed the accord in the French city of Strasbourg at the Council’s headquarters

Ukraine and the Council of Europe human rights body signed an agreement on Wednesday forming the basis for a special tribunal intended to bring to justice senior Russian officials for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset signed the accord in the French city of Strasbourg at the Council’s headquarters.
“This is truly a very important step. Every war criminal must know there will be justice and that includes Russia. We are now boosting the legal work in a serious way,” Zelensky told the ceremony.
“There is still a long road ahead. Today’s agreement is just the beginning. We must take real steps to make it work. It will take strong political and legal cooperation to make sure every Russian war criminal faces justice, including (President Vladimir) Putin.”
Ukraine has demanded the creation of such a body since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, accusing Russian troops of committing thousands of war crimes. It is also intent on prosecuting Russians for orchestrating the invasion.
The 46-member Council of Europe, set up after World War Two to uphold human rights and the rule of law, approved the tribunal in May, saying it was intended to be complementary to the International Criminal Court and fill legal gaps in prosecutions.
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.


US military to create two new border zones, officials say

Updated 26 June 2025
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US military to create two new border zones, officials say

  • A new “National Defense Area” will be created covering about 250 miles (402 km) of the Rio Grande river in Texas

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will create two new military zones along the border with Mexico, US officials said on Wednesday, a move that allows troops to temporarily detain migrants or trespassers. President Donald Trump’s administration has hailed its actions along the border, including the deployment of active duty troops, as the reason for a sharp decline in crossings by undocumented migrants. Trump made voters’ concerns about immigration a cornerstone of his 2024 re-election bid.
The Pentagon has already created two military zones, but only four people have been temporarily detained on them, a US official said.
A new “National Defense Area” will be created covering about 250 miles (402 km) of the Rio Grande river in Texas and administered as a part of Joint Base San Antonio, according to the Air Force.
The US officials said the other military zone would be administered as a part of Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona.
The zones are intended to allow the Trump administration to use troops to detain migrants without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act that empowers a president to deploy the US military to suppress events such as civil disorder.
As legal deterrents to border crossers, the zones have had mixed results. Federal magistrate judges in New Mexico and Texas dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants caught in the areas on grounds they did not know they were in a restricted military zone.
However, some 120 migrants pleaded guilty to trespassing in the first Texas zone in May and federal prosecutors obtained their first two trespassing convictions for the New Mexico zone on June 18, according to US Attorneys’ Offices in the two states.
Around 11,900 troops are currently on the border.
Illegal border crossings fell to a record low in March after the Biden administration shut down asylum claims in 2024 and Mexico tightened immigration controls.


Palestinian student sues Michigan school over teacher’s reaction to her refusal to stand for Pledge

Updated 26 June 2025
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Palestinian student sues Michigan school over teacher’s reaction to her refusal to stand for Pledge

  • Danielle “suffered extensive emotional and social injuries,” including nightmares, stress and strained friendships, the lawsuit says

DETROIT: The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of a 14-year-old student who said a teacher humiliated her for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in protest of US support of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Danielle Khalaf’s teacher told her, “Since you live in this country and enjoy its freedom, if you don’t like it, you should go back to your country,” according to the lawsuit.
Danielle, whose family is of Palestinian descent, declined to recite the Pledge over three days in January.
“We can only marvel at the conviction and incredible courage it took for her to follow her conscience and her heart,” ACLU attorney Mark Fancher said.
The lawsuit says her teacher admonished her and told her she was being disrespectful.
As a result, Danielle “suffered extensive emotional and social injuries,” including nightmares, stress and strained friendships, the lawsuit says.
The ACLU and the Arab American Civil Rights League said Danielle’s First Amendment rights were violated, and the lawsuit seeks a financial award.
“It was traumatizing, it hurt and I know she could do that to other people,” Danielle said at a news conference in February, referring to the teacher’s treatment.
At that time, the school district said it had taken “appropriate action,” though it didn’t elaborate.
“Discrimination in any form is not tolerated by Plymouth-Canton Community Schools and is taken very seriously,” the district said.
The school district declined Wednesday to comment further, citing the litigation.
Michigan has more than 300,000 residents of Middle Eastern or North African descent, second in the US behind California, according to the Census Bureau.


Suspect in US fire attack on Jewish protest faces new hate crime charges

Updated 26 June 2025
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Suspect in US fire attack on Jewish protest faces new hate crime charges

  • Alongside the newly announced federal charges, Soliman faces 28 attempted murder charges

LOS ANGELES, United States: The suspect in a Molotov cocktail attack on a march by Jewish protesters in Colorado will face an additional 12 charges for carrying out a hate crime, the US Justice Department said Wednesday.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, already faces over 100 criminal counts for allegedly throwing firebombs and spraying burning gasoline at a group of people who gathered on June 1 in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
President Donald Trump cited the attack, which injured 15 people, to justify his decision to ban travel from 12 countries to the United States to “protect” the nation from “foreign terrorists.”
Authorities have said Soliman, 45, was in the United States illegally at the time of the incident as he had overstayed his tourist visa.
Alongside the newly announced federal charges, Soliman faces 28 attempted murder charges as well as a bevvy of other counts relating to his alleged use of violence.
He also faces a count of animal cruelty for a dog that was hurt.
Police who rushed to the scene of the attack found 16 unused Molotov cocktails and a backpack weed sprayer containing gasoline that investigators say Soliman had intended to use as a makeshift flamethrower.
In bystander videos, the attacker can be heard screaming “End Zionists!” and “Killers!“
It came less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, where a 31-year-old suspect, who shouted “Free Palestine,” was arrested.