Six In The Morning Monday 22 March 2021

 

'He cut my underwear. Then he did what he did'

They wanted democracy. Instead they say they were beaten and raped by police.

By Nick Paton Walsh, Sebastian Shukla, Christian Streib and Denis Lapin, CNN

Updated 1041 GMT (1841 HKT) March 22, 2021

Sergei stood on a small sheet of ice in the Dnieper River and breathed in the icy air hard. He had escaped, but that relief was overwhelmed by both the pain of leaving his homeland and the fear he might not survive the rest of his perilous journey.

He was wanted, again, by Belarusian police. He had already been detained last summer and was beaten in custody, all for protesting against the election victory declared by President Alexander Lukashenko. Fellow protesters he'd spent time in detention with had just been arrested, and it was clear the police would soon come for him again. Reluctantly, he knew he had to flee.

His was a particularly remarkable run to freedom. He crossed the border into Ukraine illegally, and was not able to walk through the forest and across sheet ice, like many before him had done. In a hurry, and surrounded by melting ice, Sergei put on a wetsuit and flippers he had bought -- and swam.

EU and UK impose sanctions on Chinese officials over Xinjiang

It is the first time for three decades either institution has punished China for human rights abuses

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Mon 22 Mar 2021 14.44 GMT

The EU and the UK have both crossed a political rubicon by imposing parallel sanctions on a small group of senior Chinese officials involved in the mass internment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province.

The steps were announced by the EU foreign affairs council and the UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab. It is the first time for three decades either institution has punished China for human rights abuses, and both will now be working hard to contain the potential political and economic fallout.

China immediately responded by saying it was sanctioning 10 EU individuals and four entities. The German Green politician Reinhard Bütikofer, an active voice in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a group that attempts to reform the approach of democratic countries to China, was among five MEPs sanctioned. Two academics were also sanctioned.

Opinion: Women in sport deserve better

After another week during which women in sport were reminded of the prejudices they still face, DW's Jonathan Harding writes that it is time for teams and organizations to make genuine change.

How much longer is sport going to tell women that it wants them to play professionally but then commit to actions that suggest otherwise?

That leading players felt the need to write a letter to the German Football Association (DFB) after the discriminatory actions of a youth coach is telling.

Modern slavery in global supply chains

Malaysia’s dirty gloves

Malaysia’s manufacturers of disposable gloves have profited during the pandemic from the cheap labour of poor Asian migrants, who often end up in debt bondage.

by Peter Bengtsen

Selif. a factory worker from Bangladesh, is one of many migrant workers I have talked to about forced labour conditions in Malaysia in recent years. Over a restaurant meal in Kuala Lumpur’s industrial outskirts in late 2019, he said that ‘everyone I know here has paid huge amounts to agents to get jobs over the years’ and had their passports confiscated to make sure they did not leave their employers.

Selif has worked for a decade for one of Malaysia’s biggest manufacturers of rubber gloves, with major customers in European and American health sectors. However, debt bondage is endemic in all Malaysia’s export industries, including electronics and apparel. In 2018 Malaysia exported $44.8bn worth of microelectronics and $4.2bn worth of apparel; in 2020, as the world’s biggest producer of rubber gloves, it supplied almost 70% of global demand (360 billion gloves).

Prosecutors charge 2 Americans with helping Ghosn flee, jump bail

By YURI KAGEYAMA

Japanese prosecutors charged two Americans, Michael Taylor and his son Peter, Monday in the escape of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn to Lebanon, while he was out on bail.

Tokyo District Prosecutors have been questioning the Taylors since they were extradited from the United States earlier this month. They have been detained at a Tokyo detention center since March 2.

Prosecutors said the Taylors were formally charged with helping a criminal escape, although dates and other details of a trial were undecided. The prosecutors sought their extradition for months after they were arrested and detained in the U.S. last May.

Assaulting the Truth, Ron Johnson Helps Erode Confidence in Government

Trip Gabriel and Reid J. Epstein

Mon, March 22, 2021, 4:56 AM

Sen. Ron Johnson incited widespread outrage when he said recently that he would have been more afraid of the rioters who rampaged the Capitol on Jan. 6 had they been members of Black Lives Matter and antifa.

But his revealing and incendiary comment, which quickly prompted accusations of racism, came as no surprise to those who have followed Johnson’s career in Washington or back home in Wisconsin. He has become the Republican Party’s foremost amplifier of conspiracy theories and disinformation now that Donald Trump is banned from social media and largely avoiding appearances on cable television.

Johnson is an all-access purveyor of misinformation on serious issues such as the pandemic and the legitimacy of American democracy, as well as invoking the etymology of Greenland as a way to downplay the effects of climate change.