5: Judge Rejects “Riot” Charges Against Amy Goodman in North Dakota
A North Dakota judge today refused to authorize riot charges against award-winning journalist Amy Goodman for her reporting on an attack against Native American-led anti-pipeline protesters.
“This is a complete vindication of my right as a journalist to cover the attack on the protesters, and of the public’s right to know what is happening with the Dakota Access pipeline,” said Goodman. “We will continue to report on this epic struggle of Native Americans and their non-Native allies taking on the fossil fuel industry and an increasingly militarized police in this time when climate change threatens the planet.”
District Judge John Grinsteiner did not find probable cause to justify the charges filed on Friday October 14 by State’s Attorney Ladd R. Erickson. Those charges were presented after Erickson had withdrawn an earlier charge against Goodman of criminal trespass. Goodman had returned to North Dakota to fight the trespassing charge.
The charges in State of North Dakota v. Amy Goodman stemmed from Democracy Now!’s coverage of protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. On Saturday, September 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the pipeline company attacking protesters. The report showed guards unleashing dogs and using pepper spray and featured people with bite injuries and a dog with blood dripping from its mouth and nose.
Democracy Now!’s report went viral online, was viewed more than 14 million times on Facebook and was rebroadcast on many outlets, including CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC and the Huffington Post.
On September 8, a criminal complaint and warrant was issued for Goodman’s arrest on the trespassing charge.
“These shifting charges were a transparent attempt by the prosecutor to intimidate Amy Goodman and to silence coverage of the resistance to the pipeline,” said Reed Brody, an attorney for Goodman. “Fortunately, these bully tactics didn’t work and freedom of the press has prevailed.”
The pipeline project has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and members of over 100 other tribes from across the U.S., Canada and Latin America.
Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning public television/radio news program that airs on over 1,400 stations worldwide. Goodman has co-authored six New York Times bestsellers and won many of journalism’s highest awards in more than three decades working as a reporter.
Democracy Now
4: UNESCO adopts anti-Israel resolution on al-Aqsa Mosque
Palestinian leaders have welcomed a decision by the United Nations cultural agency to adopt a resolution on occupied East Jerusalem that sharply criticises Israeli policies around the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, while Israel says it ignores Jewish ties to the key holy site.
A spokesman for Paris-based UNESCO said on Tuesday that the resolution, which caused Israel to suspend its cooperation with the agency, was adopted without a new vote after being approved at the committee stage last week.
The text, which touches on Israel’s management of Palestinian religious sites, refers throughout to the al-Aqsa mosque compound site in occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City only by its Muslim names: al-Aqsa and al-Haram al-Sharif.
Aljazeera
3: Hacked Emails Prove Coordination Between Clinton Campaign and Super PACs
THE FACT THAT political candidates are closely coordinating with friendly Super PACs — making a mockery of a central tenet of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision — is one of the biggest open secrets in Washington.
Super PACs are only allowed to accept unlimited contributions on the condition that the money is spent independently of specific campaigns. The Federal Election Commission hasn’t reacted for a variety of reasons, including a lack of hard evidence, vague rules, and a partisan divide among the commissioners so bitter they can’t even agree to investigate obvious crimes.
But newly disclosed hacked campaign documents published by WikiLeaks and a hacker who calls himself Guccifer 2.0 reveal in stark terms how Hillary Clinton’s staffers made Super PACs an integral part of her presidential campaign.
The Intercept
2: The battle for Mosul begins
Early Monday morning, Iraqi and Kurdish troops backed by a U.S.-led coalition began an operation to retake the city of Mosul, which has been under the control of the Islamic State group for the past two years. Mosul is the last and largest stronghold in Iraq for the terrorist group, and the offensive is being seen as a crucial step in the ongoing U.S. effort to train Iraqi forces and debilitate IS.
Vice News
1: Saudi blogger Raif Badawi faces further round of flogging, supporters say
Raif Badawi, the imprisoned Saudi blogger whose public flogging in 2015 generated global outcry, now risks a new round of lashes, according to his supporters.
Evelyne Abitbol, who founded the Raif Badawi Foundation with Badawi’s wife, said a “reliable source” in Saudi Arabia claims he faces a new flogging after being sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment and 1,000 lashes in 2014 for breaking the kingdom’s technology laws and insulting Islam.
Saudi embassy officials in Ottawa and Saudi government officials in Riyadh were not immediately available for comment.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the source’s claims.
The Guardian