Category Archives: Freedom

John Lancaster, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of First Freedom Bancshares Inc., recently announced the board of directors has approved a 30-cent-per-share dividend payable to shareholders of record on April 28, with a payment date of May 19.

This represents a 20-percent increase over the 2016 dividend and is reflective of the excellent year the bank experienced in 2016, Lancaster said.

"We are extremely pleased to be able to reward our shareholders with this fifth consecutive dividend," he said. "The bank is growing and performing very well, and it is deserving and appropriate that we share this success with our shareholders."

In 2016, First Freedom acquired two additional offices in Putnam County and one in Jackson County. These acquisitions, along with internal growth, fueled asset growth of 29.7 percent year over year. Additionally, 2017 first quarter net income is up 36 percent over the same period in 2016.

For shareholders who wish to reinvest their dividend into additional shares of First Freedom Bancshares stock, the company has a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) available. Due to SEC restrictions, this plan is available only to shareholders residing in the state of Tennessee. A complete copy of the DRIP is available at http://www.firstfreedombank.com under the shareholder information tab. This is a one-time enrollment for current, as well as any future dividends; however, participation may be canceled at any time.

Original post:

First Freedom Bank ups dividend by 20 percent - Wilson Post

[Editors note: This is the first of two editorials on religious freedom Representative Rooney has written for Crux. The second will be published tomorrow.]

Throughout history religion has played a stabilizing role in society. When practiced freely, religion establishes a moral compass for people to follow, which in turn leads to tolerance of differing views and comity in civil society.

Free expression of religion allows pluralistic religious organizations to exist within modern secular states, and can ease ideological conflicts by transforming volatile societies into models of peaceful coexistence.

St. Augustine realized that free expression of religion leads to a stable and just society when he wrote, in The City of God, that without the justice and morality induced by religion, people would become no more than a band of robbers.

Centuries later, Pope Benedict XVI referred to this metaphor and told the German Bundestag that religion in civic life is an essential precondition for peace and justice, because the conviction that there is a God gives rise to the idea of human rights, equality before the law, recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of peoples responsibility for their actions, i.e. conscience.

The free expression of religion is a precondition for a functional role of religion in society. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1786, written by Thomas Jefferson and supported by James Madison, was the first ever law protecting religious freedom.

The Statute provided the blueprint for the establishment clause in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which has allowed a pluralistic religious society to develop in the United States which coexists with the modern secular state.

A modern-day study of religion in the United States, American Grace, by Robert Putnam and David Campbell, argues strongly that religious beliefs and practice correlate positively with numerous forms of good and productive behaviors, like increased volunteerism, charitable giving and civic activism in American society.

American leaders from George Washington to George W. Bush have promoted religious freedom as a stabilizing influence on individuals behavior.

In 1790, President Washington wrote a letter to a Jewish congregation, stating that religious beliefs are an inherent natural right and the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

In his Farewell Address, President Washington further warned that national morality cannot exist in exclusion of religious principle. Two centuries later, it was President George W. Bush who said freedom of religion is not something to be feared faith gives us a moral core.

The United Statess experience with religious freedom has spread around the world.

During a 2014 visit to Albania, Pope Francis recognized the peaceful coexistence and collaboration of Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians in the former communist, majority Muslim state.

Lebanon, the most religiously diverse country in the Middle East, with significant populations of Sunni and Shia Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Druze, has a government structure designed to protect the different religions from persecution and to promote inter-religious cooperation.

Free expression of religion allows religions in Albania and Lebanon to peacefully coexist without fear of persecution.

Due to its stabilizing role in society, religious freedom can be used as a soft power weapon to deter extremist ideologies, as evidenced by Holy See diplomacy. In the 1950s, the Catholic Church was the only religious group President Truman could engage to openly attack communism.

While other religious leaders refused to speak up, the Catholic Church directly and publicly attacked communism as an existential threat to religion and freedom.

Decades later, Pope John Paul IIs inspiration and leadership hastened the end of communism in Eastern Europe. In Poland, his home country, the Popes visit to the Gdansk Shipyard in 1979 forcefully inspired the Solidarity movement, whose actions eventually toppled the communist regime.

The Holy See has used inter-religious dialogue as a platform to nurture an exchange of ideas oriented toward finding an Islamic rationale to combat extremist ideology. During a visit to Turkey, Pope Francis met with Patriarch Bartholomew of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The two Christian leaders jointly condemned Christian persecution in the Middle East and called for further inter-religious dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

Pope Franciss recent visit to Egypt, in which he publicly appeared with Ahmad al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, similarly called for more inter-faith dialogue in a nation currently plagued by religiously inspired attacks on Christians. This dialogue serves as another example of the importance of pursuing freedom of expression of all religions as a soft power tool.

In summary, it is clear that religion plays a stabilizing role in society and that freedom to practice religion, of all beliefs, is critical to ensuring that society is tolerant and civil. Building on past examples, hopefully religious freedom can provide an effective soft power weapon in the war against radical Islam, which will be discussed in part two of this series.

Francis Rooney is the U.S. Representative for Floridas 19th congressional district. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and previously served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2008.

See the article here:

The role of religious freedom today - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

Austria is set to be the next battleground in the fight between mainstream European politicians and far-right populists.

The countrys governing grand coalition between the center-left Social Democrats and the center-right Peoples Party collapsed on Monday, and Social Democrat Chancellor Christian Kern said he expects an early election in the autumn.

But outside Austria, attention is likely to focus first on the far-right Freedom Party, which joins the two coalition parties in the battle for first to third place in many opinion polls.

Subscribe to Newsweek from $1 per week

Months of disagreements between the governing parties led to the resignation of Peoples Party leader Reinhold Mitterlehner.

He was succeeded by Sebastian Kurz, the coalitions foreign ministerhe is considered a prodigious talent on the rise at just 30 years of age and the Peoples Party picked him as replacement leader on Sunday. In a meeting with Chancellor Kern on Monday Kurz pushed for a snap poll.

The two parties were supposed to lead the country until September 2018 but the poll now looks likely to happen a year earlier.

In Mondays meeting, the Social Democrats and the Peoples Party agreed to back a parliamentary motion supporting an early poll. The vote is expected to take place on October 8 or 15.

Opinion polls vary quite widely, but most show each of the Social Democrats, Peoples Party and Freedom Party with scores in the mid-20s.

The government is chosen by the Austrian president (currently independent green Alexander Van der Bellen), and is normally made up of the strongest party or parties in parliament, since any chancellor must have parliaments backing.

The Freedom Party is likely to jump at the opportunity for a shot at power. In Decembers presidential election, Europes moderates watched with baited breath as the hard-right populist party almost took the presidencyVan der Bellen edged out far-right Norbert Hofer in a re-run of the April vote.

In the event, Hofer took just under 47 percent of the vote, meaning Van Der Bellen won.

But the big story of that election was the collapse of the old mainstream parties, none of whom passed the contests first round, similar to France's recent presidential election when two independent candidates faced off. The Freedom Party will hope its anti-establishment message can once again sway voters tired of the old political options.

One of Europes more established far-right populist parties, the Freedom Party was founded in 1955, initially drawing support from former National Socialists (Nazis).

Though at times in its history the party has steered closer to the center-right, its current program is hard-right, centring on national identity and opposition to immigration and globalization.

Its program is titled Austria first, and states that Austria is not a country of immigration. The party is particularly opposed to Islam. It believes that cultural Christianity is the basis of all European values. A government pledge in January to ban Islamic face veils was widely seen as a response to the FPOs growing popularity.

The party is Euroskeptic, and sits in the Europe of Nations and Freedom group in the European parliament alongside Geert Wilderss Dutch Freedom Party and Marine Le Pens National Front. The mainly far-right grouping is committed to the ultimate destruction of the current European Union.

The party has been in coalition before, most recently from 2000-2005, in a move that led to the EU implementing diplomatic sanctions against Austria based on what advisers considered the partys opposition to democratic principles. A governing role for the far-right in todays even more sensitive and divided climate could lead to dramatic fallout.

Read this article:

Austrian Election: Another Snap Poll in Europe Gives the Far-Right a Shot at Power - Newsweek

More than two decades ago, with the aim of foster[ing] democracy by ensuring public access to agency records and information, Congress amended the Freedom of Information Act to require agencies to proactively post frequently requested records online. As the legislative history makes clear, the purpose of this mandate was to prompt agencies to make information available affirmatively on their own initiative in order to meet anticipated public demand for it.

Pursuant to this amendment, the U.S. Department of Agricultures (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service began posting records online related to its enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) our nations most significant animal protection law. In doing so, the agency noted that it received more requests for these documents than for any other category of records and acknowledged that, given this frequency and the continuing high interest from animal interest groups as well as the general public, the law required such posting.

Despite this clear recognition of its legal duties, in amuchpublicizedmove earlier this year, the agency abruptly took all of these records down from its website. Dubbed the#USDAblackout, the action was almost universally condemned, not just by animal advocates but also by more than 100 members of Congress and even those in the very industries regulated by the AWA and subject to the disclosures, including zoos, research institutions and the pet trade. The takedown of the website was Orwellian the agency claimed it was done [b]ased on [its] commitment to being transparent [and] remaining responsive to [its] stakeholders informational needs. But what has ensued since is perhaps even more surreal.

Now, in an attempt to persuade a court to dismissa lawsuit filed by myself and otherschallenging the blackout, the USDA hasasserted that it was never under any legal duty to post the records this despite the clear statutory mandate that agencies proactively post frequently requested records, the agencys acknowledgement that the records at issue werethesingle most frequently requested, and even its prior recognition that it was legally required to post the records. It seems, to crib from Lewis Carroll, that the law means just what [the USDA] chooses it to mean neither more nor less. And apparently that meaning can shift at whim.

On the heels of this move, the USDA demonstrated total contempt for yet another mandate of the Freedom of Information Act the requirement that, even if parts of records are exempt from disclosure, [a]ny reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be provided to any person requesting such record after deletion of the portions which are exempt under this subsection. As the government has long recognized, the clear purpose of this requirement is to prevent the withholding of entire records or files merely because portions of them are exempt, and to require the release of nonexempt portions. Yet withhold entire documents is precisely what the USDA did: In response to a Freedom of Information Act request for records about the decision to take down the website, the USDA sent me1,771 pages, every one of them completely blacked out. It blacked out the records about the blackout.

Is this the new normal? Total disregard of longstanding duties under the Freedom of Information Act? Government agencies thumbing their noses at the intense public interest in what theyre up to? Its bad enough that the AWAhas never been properly enforceddespite keen and abiding public interest in animal welfare when the AWA was initially passed in the 1960s, Congress received more public communications related to concerns about animal welfare than about civil rights and the Vietnam War combined. Eviscerating transparency making government operations into a black hole will not be tolerated. Its a shame that in this new era advocates are having to redirect their time and resources to getting basic information that they are clearly entitled to under the law. But make no mistake about it we will fight for what is rightfully ours. Ive filed anappealchallenging the USDAs wholesale redactions. The agency has untilMay 30to respond.

The opening words of Harold L. Crosss 1953 text The Peoples Right to Know, which became the foundation of the Freedom of Information Act, ring truer today than ever before: Public business is the publics business. The people have the right to know. Freedom of information is their just heritage. Without that the citizens of a democracy have but changed their kings.

Go here to read the rest:

Freedom of information in peril: What transparency looks like in Trump's government - Salon

People who reveal information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act could be jailed under new legal proposals. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Whistleblowers and journalists could be imprisoned for revealing documents that can be obtained through freedom of information requests, campaigners have warned.

Responding to the consultation on Law Commission proposals for a new espionage act with more punitive powers, freedom of speech organisations have condemned plans for lowering the threshold for prosecutions.

The Campaign for Freedom of Information and the rights group Article 19 fear that the proposals would make it easier to secure convictions by weakening the test for proving an offence and even criminalise passing on information discoverable under FoI requests.

Under the 1989 Official Secrets Act, some offences require proof that a disclosure is likely to damage defence, international relations or law enforcement, or fall into a class of information likely to damage the security services work.

The Law Commission says the likely to damage test prevents prosecutions being brought because proving this requires more damaging information to be revealed in court. It wants the harm test to be reduced from likely to cause harm to capable of causing harm.

The Freedom of Information Act, however, only exempts information about defence, international relations and law enforcement using the threshold of likely to harm. Leaking information which is capable of, but very unlikely to, cause harm would therefore potentially become an offence, it is claimed.

The Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tom Brake said: These draconian proposals beg the question of what the government has to hide. It is a hallmark of our democracy that government should be accountable and transparent.

The Lib Dem manifesto will include a commitment to end the ministerial veto on release of information under the FoI Act. The party will also pledge to reduce the proportion of FoI requests that result in information being withheld by government departments.

We would expand the Freedom of Information act to stop ministers and departments from being able to block the publication of information they see as politically inconvenient, Brake said.

Maurice Frankel, the director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: These proposals are not only oppressive but unworkable. It is beyond common sense to make it an official secrets offence to leak information which anyone could obtain under FoI.

The proposals would deter officials from discussing information that has lawfully been made public. It will set the FoI Act and the Official Secrets Act on a collision course. It is not the Law Commissions job to make an ass of the law but thats what its proposals would do.

Thomas Hughes, the executive director of Article 19, said: The Law Commissions proposals would move the clock backwards, undoing improvements in the UKs 1989 Official Secrets Acts, and setting a dangerous example of eroding freedom of expression protections, which may be copied by oppressive regimes globally.

The consultation on how to reform the Official Secrets Acts in the digital age was headed by the law commissioner, Prof David Ormerod QC. The initiative for the review came from the Cabinet Office in 2015. Ormerod has said that he relished the opportunity to update archaic legislation that was ripe for reform in the digital age.

Original post:

Freedom of Information Act document leaks could become criminal - The Guardian

Another first-inning lead proved advantageous Saturday night as the Florence Freedom, presented by Titan Mechanical Solutions, rode a strong pitching performance to a 3-1 win over the Gateway Grizzlies at GCS Ballpark.

Tony Vocca (1-0) turned in the second straight quality start for the Freedom (2-0), striking out six batters while allowing only two hits through his six innings on the mound.

I attacked them with fastballs, working both sides of the plate, Vocca said. (Catcher Garrett) Vail and I were on the same page throughout, and it makes it even easier when the defense is solid like ours has been.

Logan Longwith provided two innings of scoreless relief in his Frontier League debut, and Matt Pobereyko struck out the side in order in the ninth to record the save, positioning the Freedom for a chance at a series sweep in Sundays finale.

Andre Mercurios first-inning RBI-single put Florence on top early for the second straight night, and after the Grizzlies (0-2) tied the score on a sacrifice fly in the third, Mercurio delivered a second RBI-single in the fifth to give the Freedom a permanent lead.

Jordan Brower homered to right-center in the top of the sixth, ending the night for Gateway starter Will Anderson (0-1). The righty struck out five, but allowed ten Florence hits prior to yielding to the bullpen, which held the Freedom scoreless over the final three innings.

In the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, the Grizzlies put one runner aboard to bring the tying run to the plate, but failed to score in each instance.

The Freedom will play for the series sweep Sunday with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m. at GCS Ballpark. Right-hander Cody Gray will start for Florence against Grizzlies left-hander Dylan Craig.

The Freedom home opener of the regular season is on Wednesday, May 17. Group tickets and season ticket plans are currently on sale for the 2017 campaign. Fans can guarantee seating for premium promotional dates by calling the Freedom at 859-594-4487.

Read more from the original source:

Freedom begin season with two wins in a row, look to sweep Grizzlies on Mother's day - User-generated content (press release) (registration)

Dozens of civil society, feminist, and anti-occupation groups form the Council for the Protection of Freedoms to fight back against the governments and publics attacksagainst freedom of expression.

Palestinian Authority diplomat Muhammad Odeh (L) speaks alongside journalist Kholod Massalha at a conference announcing the Council for the Protection of Freedoms, Nazareth, Israel, May 12, 2017. (Courtesy of Ilam)

Representatives from over 30 civil society organizations gathered on Friday in Nazareth for the founding conference of the Council for the Protection of Freedoms. The council was established to fight back against the feeling among various organizations that their activities and freedom of expression are at risk. The goal will be to protect these freedoms from both the government as well as various tendencies among both Jewish and Arab society.

The conference organizers pointed to various examples in which these freedoms are being limited, including the nation-state bill, the cancellation of three events organized by left-wing NGO, Zochrot, the governments new initiative to prevent left-wing NGOs from filing petitions to the High Court, the attacks on BTselem and Breaking the Silence, etc. On Saturday, following pressure from a right-wing student group, Hebrew University cancelled an academic conference focusing on academic research on Palestinian prisoners.

The initiative is being organized by Ilam Media Center, which works to protect and promote the rights of Arab journalists and media institutions, and the Van Leer Institute. The initiative includes independent journalists, former judges, and dozens of human rights, feminist, and anti-occupation organizations. According to Shai Lavi, the head of the Van Leer Institute, the initiative will strive to bring in additional organizations of different kinds, including cultural, religious, and academic groups. The council will be headed by Kholod Massalha, a Palestinian journalist and projects coordinator for Ilam.

Over the past few years there have been growing doubts over the most basic freedoms. The assumption is that we are in a new reality, which requires a new mode of action, said Professor Amal Jamal, the head of Ilam and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, during the conferences opening remarks. There is a process of normalizing attacks on human rights organizations. This was not part of our reality in the past, and the fact that organizations and activists are being criminalized is unusual and dangerous. Although we havent reached a point in which we cannot speak out at all, we must still act before we get there. This means we must go beyond the differences between us and there are differences for the sake of maintaining a pluralistic lifestyle.

Dr. Amal Jamal at a conference announcing the Council for the Protection of Freedoms, Nazareth, Israel, May 12, 2017. (Courtesy of Ilam)

According to Jamal, the council will be in existence for at least three years, with the first year being dedicated mainly to formulating goals and strategy in a large forum of all partners. The second and third year will be dedicated to implementing those decisions.

The past few years have seen slightly less Jewish-Arab cooperation, and I praise this initiative for creating such a partnership for the sake of democracy, said MK Yousef Jabarin (Joint List) at the conference. Not only is freedom of speech of Arab society in danger, but that of society in general. Thus we need everyone who is oppressed to take part in the initiative.

The progressive camp is on the defense worldwide, whether in the United States, Britain, or other places all this began earlier in Israel, adds Dr. Yulia Zamlinski, who heads the NGO Our Heritage The Charter for Democracy, which focuses on the situation of the Russian-speaking community in Israel. The process of resistance and undoing the damage must also recognize the failures of the democratic camp, here and elsewhere. This indues recognizing the various interests of different communities, and speaking to every public in a different way, alongside building solidarity between different publics.

Representatives of dozens of civil society and human rights organizations participate in a conference announcing the Council for the Protection of Freedoms, Nazareth, Israel, May 12, 2017. (Courtesy of Ilam)

Among the other speakers were representatives of Physicians for Humans Rights-Israel, the Arab Union for Human Rights, Kav LaOved, Achoti, BTselem, Coalition of Women for Peace, and others. Dr. Muhammad Odeh, a diplomat from the Palestinian Authority who also spoke at the conference, reminded attendees that Palestinians in the occupied territories suffer from both the occupation and a limited democratic space in their society.

The European Union will fund the councils first three years of activity. Mark Gallagher, the EUs deputy ambassador to Israel, said that the European Union is worried by the pressure being put on civil society organizations in Israel as well as in EU states, calling the council the flagship of all projects being supported by the EU in Israel.

This post was originally published in Hebrewon Local Call.

For additional original analysis and breaking news, visit +972 Magazine's Facebook page or follow us on Twitter. Our newsletter features a comprehensive round-up of the week's events. Sign up here.

Go here to see the original:

Civil society groups join forces to protect freedom of speech - +972 Magazine

Vice President Pence stood before a packed ballroom in downtown D.C. on Thursday, looking out on an audience of Orthodox priests, evangelicals, Catholics, and other Christians from all over the world. Franklin Graham, the son of the evangelist Billy Graham and head of the international charity Samaritans Purse, had convened a world summit on the persecution of Christians. Attendee name-tags hinted at the gruesome details of their lives: Persecuted individuals in the room wore badges that read PP. Pence bowed his head with Graham in prayer, and made a promise: Protecting religious freedom is a foreign-policy priority of the Trump administration.

Although the White House has made a strong verbal commitment to addressing violence against religious minorities overseas, it is not yet clear how this will play out in the realm of diplomacy. On Thursday, Pence focused on the role of the military in addressing global religious-freedom issues. He emphasized the need to defeat radical Islamic terrorists, and specifically ISIS, to protect those who have faced beheadings and other violence in the Middle East. America will not rest, we will not relent, Pence declared, until we hunt down and destroy ISIS at its source.

Why Trump's Executive Order on Religious Liberty Left Many Conservatives Dissatisfied

The community of policy experts who work on international religious-freedom issues, and particularly those who advocate for persecuted Christians, have been waiting for a message like this for a long time. Behind the scenes, many have been pushing for religious-liberty issues to become a higher priority at the State Department. In the quiet December days after the election, Congress passed a little-noticed law, the Frank R. Wolf Act, to shift the way the State Department handles religion. The law allows government watchdogs to call out people and groups, not just countries, that threaten religious freedom. Most importantly, it underscores that global religious freedom is not just a human-rights issue. The law argues that its a core part of U.S. national security.

The administration has echoed this argument, particularly with Pences Reagan-esque speech on Thursday. The administration is reaffirming Americas role as a beacon of hope and life and liberty, he said, declaring that America was and is and ever will be a shining city on a hill. The vice presidents speech was almost like a sermon, observed Johnnie Moore, a former Liberty University vice president who works on religious-freedom issues. It was strong on evangelical nuance, Moore said, filled with biblical references; over and over, Pence expressed solidarity with followers of Christ.

During his first month in office, President Trump has also spoken about religious liberty in striking terms. At the National Prayer Breakfast, he spoke of Muslims being brutalized, victimized, murdered, and oppressed by ISIS killers, threats of extermination against the Jewish people, and a campaign of genocide against Christians, where they cut off heads. This, he has said, is the ultimate reason to fight radical Islamic extremism.

And yet, when it comes to issues like refugee resettlement and diplomacy, Trumps approach has been mixed. His pending executive order on immigration and refugees directs the State Department to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individuals country of nationality. But it would also bar all refugee admissions from countries where religious minorities have faced intense persecution and violence, including Syria.

So far, the Trump administration has not yet appointed a new ambassador for international religious freedomthe State Department official responsible for tracking and coordinating diplomacy on these issues, a newly elevated role under the Wolf Act. Several Washington officials who work on these issuesincluding Nina Shea, the director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, and Frank Wolf, the former Republican congressman from Virginia who is the namesake of the 2016 legislationsaid they believe an appointment is imminent and the administration is ready to make an announcement. In the new Wolf Act, Congress also advised the administration to appoint a deputy assigned to the National Security Council.

The ambassador position has been around since 1998, when Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act. That legislation created a religious-freedom office in the State Department and established a separate watchdog body, the U.S. Commission on International Freedom. Both bodies largely exist to make lists: Each compiles an annual report about the status of religious freedom around the world, including countries where its under threat, and submits those findings for the presidents use.

Since the laws inception, these lists have been plagued by their ambiguous status in policymaking. It was always a frustration that while their monitoring was good, there really wasnt any policy implication, said Shea. I think that ambassador role was mostly overseeing the reports and making speeches.

Weve been solemnly vowing never again to be silent in the face of genocide, and yet this post seemed almost inconsequential.

Part of this was the structure of the job, but some religious-freedom advocatesliberals and conservatives alikehave complained that various White Houses have not taken the topic seriously. It was not a priority in a meaningful way under either the Obama administration or the Bush administration, said Katrina Lantos Swett, the former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the watchdog agency known as USCIRF. Everybody likes to pay lip service, but beyond that, the commitment and the seriousness is not as much as I would like to see it.

Especially among conservatives, a major point of concern during the Obama administration was the White Houses alleged lack of attention to violence against religious groups in the Middle East. As early as 2014, the State Department faced enormous pressure to declare that ISIS is committing genocide. Eventually, Secretary of State John Kerry made the designation in the spring of 2016. It was disappointing that the [religious-freedom] office was not able to step up at a pivotal moment in history, said Shea. This is only the second time in U.S. history that a genocide designation has been made by the government. Weve been solemnly vowing never again to be silent in the face of genocide, and yet this [ambassador] post seemed almost inconsequential.

Critics also point out that the religious-freedom-ambassador position has often stayed vacant for long stretches. It took months for the Bush administration to install Ambassador John Hanford, the second person to serve in the newly created role, and his work was effectively isolated at Foggy Bottom during the Bush years, with little impact on American foreign policy, wrote the Georgetown University professor Thomas Farr in 2009. Obama had already been in office for two years when his first nominee for the position, Suzan Johnson Cook, was confirmed. Cooks nomination was reportedly blocked for nearly a year by then-Senator Jim DeMint, who seemed to believe she didnt have much relevant foreign-policy experience, according to congressional records. (During Cooks eventual confirmation hearing in 2011, then-Senator Barbara Boxer commended her for traveling to five continents, which I think is a tremendous education, asking, And is it true you speak Spanish?)

The main evidence that the State Department doesnt take religious freedom seriously is that the United States keeps working closely with nations that have long been tagged by USCIRF as countries of particular concern, according to advocates.

Saudi Arabia is a prime example. Since 2004, the Commission has repeatedly called out the country for its uniquely repressive [restrictions on] the public expression of any religion other than Islam. Typically, that would trigger certain consequences: The president could choose to withdraw development aid, deny the country security assistance, or impose a variety of economic sanctions. Instead, for more than a decade, the State Department has allowed an indefinite waiver on actions against the Saudis. In the short run, theres always a good argument to not do anything to upset the apple cart, orpardon my languagepiss off somebody youre trying to work with in other arenas, said Lantos Swett.

The Vice President was saying that America will be that covenant Tillersons words were not quite that way.

Thats how countries like Saudi Arabia can stay on the bad side of U.S. officials for years and not suffer any repercussions: Religious freedom isnt always seen as a top priority in diplomacy. According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, this administration isnt likely to change that status quo. Early in May, he told State Department employees that if you condition our national-security efforts on someone adopting our valuesincluding freedom, human dignity, [and] the way people are treatedthen we probably cant achieve our national-security goals or our national-security interests. In other words, he seemed to be saying, human-rights concerns shouldnt limit U.S. diplomacy, particularly when it comes to national-security issues.

This seemed to conflict with Pences message on Thursday, observed Wolf, who introduced the original religious-freedom act in 1998. President Reagan said that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were a covenant, he said. I think what Vice President [Pence] was saying is that America will be that covenant. Tillersons words were not quite that way.

During his tenure as secretary, Kerry attempted to raise the profile of religious-freedom issues. This is a huge priority within the State Department, he said during a 2015 hearing concerning the role of Rabbi David Saperstein, the latest religious-freedom ambassador. The last thing hes going to suffer for is lack of access to me, I assure you. Conservative and liberal advocates who work on international religious freedom widely praised Saperstein in interviews, and Wolf credited him with helping to secure the genocide designation against ISIS.

Kerry also created a separate office dedicated to religion, housed right down the hall from his suite on the seventh floor: the Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives. Its mission, Kerry said when it was created, is to engage more closely with faith communities around the world. There is an enormous partnership, I believe, there for the asking. While State Department officials had always worked with religious groups in various ways, there had never before been an effort to systematically establish those relationships in the United States and around the world.

By the end of Kerrys tenure, the two major religion officesled by Saperstein and Shaun Casey, a seminary professorhad more than 50 staffers between them, Saperstein said. The International Religious Freedom office saw its budget double, he said, and he took part in regular meetings among senior staff and the specials, as he put itenvoys and ambassadors with a topical area of focus.

The 2016 legislation was not so much about overhauling the position, Saperstein said, as solidifying it. What the people on the Hill wanted was to somehow institutionalize it, so that it wouldnt be lost in future administrations who might not have the same commitment or see the same need for this, Saperstein said. It wasnt a functional change at all. Farr, the Georgetown professor, sees the ambassadors newly elevated role as an important symbol, as well. While the new status will not convey a magic wand, he wrote in an email, it will signal to foreign governments, the global victims of persecution, and the American diplomatic corps that, for the first time, an American administration is treating the head of [international religious-freedom] policy as a senior diplomatic official.

If you write off an entire religion like Islam it undercuts the ability to achieve goals.

What stands to change most under the Trump administration is the State Departments orientation toward one religion in particular: Islam. One of the greatest threats today to religious freedom around the world for all groups is Islamic extremism, said Shea. It should be at the heart of our policy, and [we should be] looking at the national-security implications of this. Pence echoed this in his Thursday speech.

Saperstein sees this single-minded focus on Islam and religious persecution as a major shift. Preferencing religious persecution over ethnic persecution or racial persecution is a change in our policy that I dont think represents our values or our interests, he told me. He also sees potential danger in the rhetoric around Islamic extremism. To the extent that you write off an entire religion like Islam and everyone connected with it, he said, it undercuts the ability to achieve the very goals that such rhetoric is hoping to achieve. Lantos Swett also worried that a focus on global religious freedom might run into a certain tension with advocacy for LGBT rights around the world.

Its not clear what will happen at State, especially when it comes to the faith-outreach office Kerry created. As with any plum diplomatic positionespecially one thats recently been elevated by Congressthere has been some jostling in Washington over who will get the ambassador role. Early rumors suggested Ken Starr, the former U.S. solicitor general who carried out the Monica Lewinsky investigation under President Bill Clinton, might be in the running. But several people who work on these issues told me they were concerned about how his confirmation process might go, due to his highly politicized and controversial career. The latest rumor, shared with me by roughly half a dozen policymakers, is that Kansas Governor Sam Brownback will get the post. The White House did not respond to a request for confirmation.

Whoever gets the job, he or she will help determine whether the administration can actually carry out its big promises on religious freedom. And the timing is urgent: Shea said shes heard from religious leaders in the Middle East who are running out of food and medicine for fleeing populations. Right now, the infrastructure is not there to turn [Trumps] principles into action, she said. By the time that gets settled these Christian communities and Yazidis will disappear.

See original here:

'Protecting Religious Freedom Is a Foreign-Policy Priority of the Trump Administration' - The Atlantic

Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout

Just ahead of Mothers Day, two bills seeking to curb Texas alarming rise in maternal deaths were among more than 100 that met their demise Friday, the result of maneuvering by a group of House Republicans dedicated to disruption in the chamber.

In a stunning blow to public health experts and advocates, the 12-member House Freedom Caucus used a parliamentary maneuver to kill a wide slate of bills, including House Bill 1158, which would have connected first-time pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid to services, and House Bill 2403, which would have commissioned a study on how race and socioeconomics affect access and care for pregnant black women.

Both bills were aiming to help the state better understand how to better reach expecting mothers.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Between 2011 and 2012, 189 Texas mothers died less than a year after their pregnancy ended mostly from heart disease, drug overdoses and high blood pressure, according to the states Task Force on Maternal Mortality and Morbidity. And the states maternal mortality rates nearly doubled between 2010 and 2014, the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynecology reported last year.

The efforts to address that problem were far from the only ones thwarted as a result of the Freedom Caucus maneuvering, which began during an emotional session Thursday, ahead of the Houses deadline to pass legislation originating in that chamber.

The other legislation that died included a bill from Rep. Helen Giddings, which would have banned school districts from identifying students without enough money in their school lunch accounts,by allowing families a grace period to resolve an insufficient balance on a meal card.

Rep. Tony Dales effort to crack down on sexual coercion of young children using the internet was also a casualty.

Additionally, a sunset safety net bill died. If a similar measure does not come out of the Senate, it could mean Gov. Greg Abbott will have to reconvene lawmakers for a special session to keep a long list of state agencies from shutting down. All state agencies must undergo periodic "sunset" reviews by the Legislature or be forced to shut down if reforms arent passed.

The caucus blocked the bills by objecting to their listing on the local and consent calendar, which fast tracks legislation not expected to generate debate. If five or more lawmakers object to a bill on that calendar, it must be considered in the regular legislative process.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

The caucus members booted the bills from that calendar and slowed down proceedings Thursday night to prevent many other bills from being discussed before the midnight deadline.

The caucus members announced Thursday they were punishing House leaders after what they called a session of routine obstruction of key anti-abortion, 2nd Amendment and property rights bills.

The fact that we stand at the back mic to hold leadership accountable for the rules, and they get frustrated and they start killing our legislation is absolutely absurd, one caucus member, state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, said Thursday. The fact that priority items and emergency items for Republicans are not being brought to the floor for us to fight for is absolutely disgusting.

Rep. Shawn Thierry, D-Houston, was in tears Friday morning recounting how she tried to talk to members of the Freedom Caucus, including Tinderholt, Jonathan Stickland and Kyle Biedermann, out of putting HB 2403 on their hit list.

She argued to them that it was a "pro-life" bill, because the black mothers who died had carried their babies to term. Caucus members agreed, she said, but declined to change their plans and told Thierry it wasn't personal.

"It was like a drive-by shooting," Thierry said.

Thierry said she would try to resurrect the bill as an amendment on Brenham state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst's Senate Bill 1929. That bill would include sunsetting the state's Task Force on Maternal Mortality and Maternal Morbidity in 2023.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Giddings was among those also hoping to revive bills by attaching them to other measures still moving through the Legislature in its final weeks. The House still has time to pass bills originating in the Senate, which can be amended.

"I think what's happened to this bill is unconscionable," Giddings said of House Bill 2159. "We are going to fight till the end."

Alana Rocha and Morgan Smith contributed to this report.

Read related Tribune coverage:

See original here:

House Freedom Caucus blocks maternal mortality bills, more than 100 others - Texas Tribune

Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in military prison the longest sentence ever recorded in the US for an official leak. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

On Wednesday, some time after dawn, the security gates at the US disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, will be thrown open and a slight 5ft 2in woman will walk out into the open air and freedom.

For Chelsea Manning, release from military incarceration will mark a colossal turning point. Having been arrested seven years ago when she was an unknown, lowly and outwardly male soldier, she will emerge into an entirely new life as a civilian, a celebrity, and an openly transgender woman.

The day will be momentous in ways that go far beyond its huge personal ramifications for its subject. Mannings discharge, a parting gift of President Obama as one of his final acts in office, will bring to an end one of the more shameful chapters in US military history.

It began with the humiliating breach that saw vast quantities of state secrets downloaded by a relatively junior army private from supposedly secure intelligence databases on to a Lady Gaga CD. It passed through the harsh treatment of the perpetrator in the military brig in Quantico, Virginia, denounced by the UN as a form of torture. And it was capped by the imposition of the longest prison sentence ever recorded in the US for an official leak: 35 years in military prison.

Now Manning, her punishment foreshortened, has the chance to put all that behind her. Im looking forward to breathing the warm spring air again, she told the Guardian from her prison cell as she prepared for release.

I want that indescribable feeling of connection with people and nature again, without razor wire or a visitation booth. I want to be able to hug my family and friends again. And swimming I want to go swimming!

Mannings release will be greeted with rejoicing by public figures who have spoken out in her support over the years, from Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers to Michael Stipe of REM and the designer Vivienne Westwood, among many others. But no one carries as much weight as an empathizer of Mannings spell in the whistleblowing wilderness than Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor who followed her into the abyss and who has paid a similarly heavy price in the form not of imprisonment but of exile.

Im grateful that Chelsea will finally have a chance to enjoy the freedoms she gave so much to defend

Snowden, speaking from asylum in Russia, told the Guardian that in his opinion the timing of the soldiers release was apt, given the ominous noises coming out of the White House in the week of the firing of the FBI director James Comey. With a president who offers democracy nothing but contempt and a Congress that represents party over public, whistleblowers have never been more important, he said.

Snowden lamented what he called the draconian sentences handed down to Manning and others like her, that weaken democracys safeguard of last resort, the free press, by cutting off its most reliable source of critical truths. He praised her as a citizen who, knowing the costs, left behind the safety of silence to speak a truth that saved lives.

Despite the hardship Manning has endured over the past seven years, Snowden said he draws solace from the worldwide campaign for her freedom that will culminate with her release this week. In a comment that might be said to contain more than a grain of wistfulness, given his own state of limbo, he said: Im grateful that Chelsea will finally have a chance to enjoy the freedoms she gave so much to defend. Courage to her and volume to her voice.

Manning has indicated that she intends to live in Maryland after her release, a move that will bring her story full circle. It was here in early 2010, at a branch of the Barnes & Noble in suburban Maryland, barely 20 miles away from the Pentagon, that she used the bookstores open public wifi network to upload to WikiLeaks what she later described at her trial as some of the more significant documents of our time.

Manning was on leave from duty in Iraq at the time and staying with her aunt in Potomac. She had brought with her from the US forward operating base Hammer outside Baghdad a camera memory stick carrying hundreds of thousands of secret documents that she had downloaded from intelligence databases initially onto that infamous Lady Gaga CD.

As Manning had been poring through those classified databases in her work as an army intelligence analyst, she had grown increasingly disturbed by what she was reading, material that she believed pierced through the fog of war and revealed the true nature of -21st-century asymmetric warfare. Other documents she transmitted to WikiLeaks exposed civilian casualties from US attacks as well as evidence of corruption, censorship and other nefarious behavior on the part of Iraqi government forces and other US allies.

David Coombs, the lawyer who represented Manning at trial, spent three intense years preparing her defense and got to know her very well. He said that he came to appreciate the motives that drove her to commit a massive leak of classified information.

I can understand how Chelsea Manning was the person who did this, Coombs said. She is caring, intelligent, she sees that we dont always do the right thing and that we could be better and that if people are informed, maybe they would make better decisions.

He added: This was not someone trying to harm America or the war effort, but a person who was hoping that this would spark a debate.

By the time Manning had completed the dump of data to WikiLeaks, she had effectively put into the public domain a vast mountain of previously secret digital information. The trove included war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 250,000 US embassy cables from around the world, and official files on 765 Guantnamo detainees.

The single element that probably had most impact was footage of an aerial attack by a US Apache helicopter in Baghdad in which two Reuters staffers and other civilians were killed. WikiLeaks published the video in April 2010 under the title Collateral Murder, causing an international outcry.

When a collective of international news organizations led by the Guardian began publishing stories on the back of Mannings leaks, the global reaction was immediate, and highly divided. There were those, like the current deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump, KT McFarland, who called for the source of the leaks to be executed.

Then there were those like Hillary Clinton who were fork-tongued in their response. The then US secretary of state, embarrassed by the unveiling of hundreds of thousands of intimate diplomatic cables, insisted publicly that the leak puts peoples lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries. Privately, though, she spent hours on the phone with foreign diplomats reassuring them that no one was in peril.

Seven years later, Mannings leaks continue to evoke sharply differing opinions from informed observers. Micah Zenko, an expert on US national security policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, is skeptical of their long-term significance. They provided fascinating detail and color, he said, but I do not think they had a lasting, strategic impact, except on officials and diplomats themselves who now assume everything can leak.

David Hearst, chief editor of the London-based news and opinion site Middle East Eye, is convinced that Mannings leaks have had a far more substantial legacy. He points to embassy cables whose revelations helped to spark the Arab Spring by exposing for instance the nepotism of the Tunisian leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and the suppression of popular movements in Bahrain.

WikiLeaks undermined key US allies in the Middle East by opening a window on how the US really sees and reported on its closest middle east allies and how they see each other, in turn undermining them further in the eyes of their people, Hearst said. The disclosures confirmed the existence of US war crimes in Arab eyes, such as the Apache helicopter tape, and provided Arab youth with a unifying message that acted as an accelerator for the Arab spring uprising.

A third attitude prevalent among conservatives and parts of the military is that the leak, irrespective of its content, was an act of treachery that Obama was wrong to have rewarded with this weeks release. It was a breach of the fundamental trust between fighting men and women on which the military depends, said David French, a former major in the US army who now writes for the National Review. Obama doesnt understand that to grant early release breaks the faith.

Amid such diversity of views, one thing is certain: the US government responded to Mannings act with the severity of a category five hurricane. Coombs recalls the feeling of having virtually the entire US national security apparatus bear down on them, with the army, Pentagon, Department of State and the intelligence services all piling in to prosecute the soldier. They were pushing every legal extreme in order to obtain an outcome that would give them the greatest chance at a lengthy sentence.

Coombs and his client fought back as best they could. In the most memorable moment of the trial at Fort Meade in Maryland, the lawyer taped out on the floor of the court the precise measurements of the isolation cell in Quantico in which Manning had been penned for months, and placed inside the outline her actual prison mattress to illustrate the draconian conditions of her confinement. We couldnt bring the courtroom to Quantico, so laying it out inside the court was the next best thing, Coombs said.

Coombs and Manning succeeded in rebuffing the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which was an important victory. But they couldnt prevent the final outcome of the trial landing like a body blow. The sentence was deflating, Coombs said.

Jesselyn Radack, a human rights lawyer who defends whistleblowers, said the 35-year sentence was wholly out of kilter with previous cases. The sentence was radically harsher than the treatment of any of the other whistleblowers that have been prosecuted in recent times, she said.

The prison term left Manning facing decades in captivity, a grim prospect starkly compounded by the fact that she would be in a male-only institution even though since childhood she had privately identified as a woman. The day after the sentencing, Coombs went on NBCs Today show and announced that Manning was a transgender woman and was determined to transition, and within hours of that statement the US military gave its considered reply: no way.

Chelseas captors took a blatantly anti-constitutional anti-trans position, said Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer who has represented Manning in her battles over gender transition while inside military lock-up. Even in 2013 it was pretty clear that they couldnt just announce they were going to withhold all care.

Not for the first time, the US government underestimated the doggedness of Chelsea Manning and her supporters. Over the past four years, with the help of the ACLU, she has managed to push the military into the 21st century.

She won the right to hormone treatment, a first for a military prisoner. Last year she broke further ground when she was told that she could have gender reassignment surgery while in Fort Leavenworth.

But she also had to endure the daily struggle of being in an all-male environment in which she was obliged to undergo a forced haircut every two weeks to keep her within male military grooming standards. At times the denial of treatment sapped at her confidence and threatened even her survival.

There was a hopelessness. She was never going to get the treatment she needs, Strangio said. Chelsea was punished not once but twice with solitary confinement for trying to take her own life for reasons directly related to the denial of her care.

If gender transition has been Mannings overwhelming priority in her years of captivity, transition in more ways than one will likely remain a dominant theme when she walks out of those Fort Leavenworth gates. Her battle to live as a woman will continue, coupled with the arguably even greater transition of the return to civilian life.

Chelsea has been through years of institutional life of one sort or another, with a lot of trauma. Nothing is going to be easy, Strangio said.

Mannings aunt Debbie, with whom she was staying in Maryland when she uploaded the files to WikiLeaks, said that now was Chelseas chance to put her difficult childhood and troubles with the military behind her and finally achieve her dream of going to college. Shes extraordinarily gifted intellectually and will make a real contribution to society.

Debbie, who has rarely spoken in public, also had a stern word for military chiefs. She told the Guardian: I hope that these past few years have caused the army to think seriously about its treatment of Chelsea before and after she was deployed and make sure that other emotionally challenged soldiers are given proper treatment and are not sent into global hot spots when they are in serious need of psychological counselling.

On the up side, the minute Manning steps out into the blazing sunlight of freedom she will find herself surrounded by a family of like-minded people who will understand her journey and her challenges. As Strangio put it: Shes going to get the benefits of a beautiful and vibrant community, people who she can hug and touch and talk to, theres going to be a huge amount of support.

Touch is so important, Chelsea Manning agreed when she talked to the Guardian, after seven long years having been deprived of it. Not to forget swimming. There will be plenty of time for swimming.

Read the original post:

Chelsea Manning prepares for freedom: 'I want to breathe the warm spring air' - The Guardian