As Congress approved some $45 billion to expand ICE’s immigration detention capacity, including the jailing of families and children, we look at the case of one family. In May, plainclothes ICE agents detained a 6-year-old boy from Honduras who has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, along with his 9-year old sister and their mother, as they left their immigration court hearing in Los Angeles. In detention, the boy missed a key doctor’s appointment, and the family said his sister cried every night. As pressure grew over their conditions, the family was released on July 2. “The little boy doesn’t want to leave his home. He’s terrified. He sobs, cries and screams when his mother takes him out of the house,” says attorney Elora Mukherjee, who represents the boy and his family and is director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. She says the young children are traumatized after their month in ICE detention.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

On March 27, the Covenant School killer in Nashville used two semi-automatic weapons and a handgun to end the lives of three nine-year-old students, the head of school, a substitute teacher, and a maintenance worker.

Republicans shrugged. They said there was no role for the federal government in protecting the nation's children from gun violence. Then, walking hand in hand with the National Rifle Association, they resumed their successful efforts to loosenstate gun restrictions across the country, including Tennessee.

Ten days later, a GOP supermajority in the Tennessee House of Representatives punished dissent, undermined democracy, and became a case study in institutional racism. But they transformed a petty grievance about legislative "decorum" into a major national news story. They have energized gun control and civil rights advocates in the way that the Supreme Court's poorly reasoned abortion decision galvanized the pro-choice movement.

Guns and Money

Since 1998, the NRA and its affiliates have spent more than $200 million on political activities, nearly all of it to support Republicans.

In Texas alone, the NRA has spent $5 million over the past five years as that state's legislature expanded gun rights. At the June 2021 signing ceremony for the law that eliminated training and licensing requirements for carrying a handgun in public, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre sat alongside Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) as the only non-elected official at the table.

"Thank God, Texas is leading the way for the country," LaPierre said.

Leading where? Every year since 2020, gun violence has been the leading cause of childhood deaths in America. Recent episodes of mass school shootings include:

• October 2022: St. Louis, MO: AR-15-style assault weapon used to kill one student and one teacher; seven other students injured.
• June 2022: Uvalde, TX: AR-15 assault weapon used to kill 19 kids and two teachers; 17 others injured.
• November 2021: Oxford, MI: Semi-automatic handgun used to kill four kids; seven children and one teacher injured.
• May 2018: Santa Fe, TX: Shotgun and handgun used to kill eight students and two substitute teachers; 10 others injured.
• Feb 2018: Parkland, FL: AR-15 assault weapon used to kill 14 kids and three adult staff; 17 others injured.
• January 2018: Marshall County, KY: Semi-automatic pistol used to kill two kids; 18 other students injured.

The list goes on and on. In 2023, there have already been 16 school shootings in grades K through 12.

But the carnage isn't limited to kids or schools. Every year since 2020, there have been more than 600 mass shootings in the United States. In 2023, there have been more than 130—so far.

Democracy Thwarted

Mass shootings garner the most attention, but they are the tip of a deadly iceberg. America has five percent of the world's population and 46 percent of the world's civilian-owned firearms. We have 120 guns for every 100 people—more per capita than any other nation. Compare that to Canada (34.7), Australia (30), and Norway (28.8).

So it's not surprising that among developed nations, the U.S. also ranks first in gun homicides per capita (4.12 for every 100,000 people). Compare that to Canada (0.5), Australia (0.18), and Norway (0.07). So far in 2023 alone, guns have been involved in more than 400 children's deaths and more than 1,100 kids' injuries.

An overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans wants solutions that would not compromise anyone's Second Amendment rights:

• 90 percent of support universal background checks.
• 75 percent support a national database for gun sales.
• 67 percent favor a ban on assault-style weapons.
• 84 percent favor "red flag" laws preventing firearms sales to dangerous individuals whom a mental health provider has reported to law enforcement.
• 81 percent favor making private and gun show sales subject to background checks.
• 77 percent favor requiring all gun owners to use a safe storage unit.

Assault weapons are especially deadly. During a span of only 14 minutes, the Covenant School shooter fired 152 rounds—a bullet every five-and-a half seconds. Two semi-automatic weapons held 30 rounds of ammunition each.

From 1994 to 2004, America had a federal ban on assault weapons, and it helped—a lot, according to some studies. A 2021 analysis found "overwhelming" evidence that the law reduced mass shootings and deaths. Experts agree that the key was banning sales of high-capacity magazines that could hold more than 10 rounds.

But the federal ban expired in 2014. Republicans and the NRA have led the fight against reinstating it.

The Republican "Three-step"

Only a handful of states have enacted significant gun restrictions, but even they remain at the mercy of neighboring states that often have very few. The problem cries out for a national response.

During a three-minute interview on the U.S. Capitol steps immediately following the Nashville shooting, Tennessee's own Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) summarized the GOP's three-step defending federal paralysis on the issue.

Step 1: Nothing works, so don't try.

"We're not gonna fix it," he said.

Asked whether Congress could do anything about the problem, he continued, "Criminals are going to be criminals."

When pressed on what Congress can do to protect the nation's kids, Burchett replied: "I don't see any real role that we can do other than mess things up."

Step 2: More religion

"We need to change people's hearts," Burchett said. "As a Christian, if we talk about the church, and I've said this many times, I really think we really need a revival in this country."

Step 3: I have mine; go get your own

Asked whether other steps might safeguard children like his own daughter, Burchett said, "Well, we homeschool her."

That's his most telling comment. Fend for yourself. Don't expect a Republican-controlled government to do anything for you or your kids, unless you're wealthy and want a tax cut.

"The Tennessee Three"

Days after the Covenant School tragedy, thousands of peaceful protesters, including school-age kids and their parents, gathered at the state capitol in Nashville. Exercising their First Amendment rights to speak, assemble, and petition their government, they urged gun restrictions.

Three Democratic state representatives—two young Black men and a white woman—joined them symbolically by walking to the well of the House floor and voicing support for their cause. But Tennessee's Republican Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R) hadn't given them permission to do so.

Sexton compared them to the January 6^th rioters: "What they did… was equivalent, at least equivalent, maybe worse, depending on how you look at it, of doing an insurrection in the Capitol."

Then he sought the ultimate legislative punishment: expulsion. Not a reprimand. Not censure. Not stripping them of committee assignments. Expulsion—a rare penalty that the House had imposed on only three prior occasions in the last 150 years.

In 1866, it expelled six members after they tried to block the state's ratification of the 14 ^th Amendment granting citizenship to former slaves. In 1980, it voted 92-1 to oust a member after his bribery conviction. And in 2016 after months of investigation, it voted 70-2 to expel a lawmaker accused of repeated sexual misconduct.

On April 6, 2023, the expulsion proceedings against the "Tennessee Three" became vivid illustrations of authoritarianism and institutional racism.

State Rep. Andrew Farmer (R) sponsored the expulsion resolution against Justin Pearson (D). It asserted that Pearson's behavior "reflects adversely upon the integrity and dignity of the House…." But during the hearing on his resolution, Farmer himself did far greater damage to that legislative body.

"Just because you don't get your way, you can't come to the well, bring your friends and throw a temper tantrum with an adolescent bullhorn," Farmer scolded as Pearson stood in the well of the House floor defending himself.

"Now you all heard that," Pearson responded. "How many of you would want to be spoken to that way?"

Receiving no response, Pearson repeated his question. Again, silence followed.

The Republican supermajority then expelled Pearson, as it had the other Black representative, Justin Jones (D). It deprived 130,000 residents of the state's largest cities—Nashville and Memphis—of representation. Only one Republican joined Democrats in opposing all three expulsions.

Gloria Johnson (D) retained her seat by a single vote because six additional Republicans supported her. Asked why she was the only survivor, Johnson, who is white, said, "It might have to do with the color of our skin."

Republicans cherish the right to life, but only until the moment of birth. They value democracy, but only when it suits them. They defend dissent, but only when they are the dissenters.

And they give lip service to the quest for racial justice and equality. But their actions betray their words.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Steven Harper.

In November 2020, I decided to create an Afghan news agency run by and for women—an online news service that would counter the prevailing patriarchal norms of Afghanistan. The news agency was named after a young woman, Rukhshana, who in 2015 was stoned to death by the Taliban in Ghor province for fleeing a forced marriage. 

At the time we started, I was also working as deputy director of media and public awareness for the Kabul municipality, and I was spending much of my salary—the equivalent of about $1,000 a month—to employ three other female journalists. Some of my friends worked voluntarily, bringing our full staff to six.

In Afghanistan, particularly in remote areas, many teenage girls are unaware of menstruation before it happens to them, and when suddenly experiencing it, they feel stressed and sometimes go into nervous shock. Menstruation was like a taboo, and we wanted to help normalize it. 

We also interviewed girls and women who had been raped, including the particularly upsetting case of a nine-year-old child. Other media reported that the rape had occurred in March last year, but we searched out the family and reported the details of what happened. The child lost a lot of blood in the assault and had to be taken to a hospital to undergo surgery. An aunt of the young girl, who was raising her at the request of the child’s father, told us that after the assault, neighbors and others looked on her family with contempt. The aunt said they did not know where to “take refuge.”

 Gender apartheid

That kind of reporting is now at risk. Like so many other Afghans, I never imagined that the Taliban would retake Afghanistan so quickly, and that my family and Rukhshana Media’s team of journalists would be forced into hiding or exile. Yet on August 15, 2021, we all faced an excruciating dilemma. Under the Taliban, we believed women would have only two choices: You either accept their oppressive laws and live by them, totally changing your identity, or you live as you did and risk getting killed. As someone who struggled hard to get where I am, both options were unacceptable. I couldn’t accept having to see the world through the prison bars of a burqa, nor did I want to die. So when I received a call from the British embassy on August 24 giving me a chance to board a flight out, I took it.

According to our reporting, the Taliban have banned the broadcast of women’s voices in some areas, as well as the broadcast of movies with female actors. Media outlets have been instructed to separate the offices of men and women, to prevent them from working together directly. In March this year, the Taliban banned private news channels in Afghanistan from rebroadcasting programs of the BBC, VOA, and Deutsche Welle, reportedly because of the way their news presenters dressed. In May, the Taliban ordered all female TV presenters to cover their faces. In some places, it has also banned female journalists from attending its press conferences.

When the Taliban forced female presenters to wear the hijab, I edited the news with a heavy heart. To me, it meant that a form of social imprisonment was being reimposed. At about six o’clock that evening, I turned off the computer in my room here in London, far from Afghanistan, and for a moment I thought about the efforts and struggles of two decades—especially the struggles of Afghan women—and cried.

Despite all these restrictions, however, female journalists continue to work. A female presenter for a private television station told me she finds it challenging to wear a mask while working on-air—she can’t breathe properly and has difficulty pronouncing her words clearly—but added that she won’t give up doing on-air work. Some female reporters, meanwhile, have taken on male aliases, to better hide their identity and protect themselves.

Our first male reporter

After the Taliban takeover, Rukhshana remained committed to providing opportunities to female journalists. But fear prevailed, and we had difficulty recruiting—particularly in the provinces and outside the main cities. So almost two months after the Taliban took power, we hired our first male reporter. Since then, we’ve enlisted others who share our commitment to telling the stories of women.

Together, our female and male reporters, often working covertly, aim to report for their fellow Afghans but also for audiences around the world, so they too can know what the people of Afghanistan are going through in the current crisis. We publish in both Dari and English, and use social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram to disseminate our news reports and video. 

All of our reporters in Afghanistan write under pseudonyms and have very little access to official information. Still, they try. In February this year, a reporter who goes by the name Nasiba Arefi called a Taliban spokesman for the police in western Herat to ask about two dead bodies that had been hung from the shovel of a giant backhoe. Instead of answering her questions, the spokesman made demands: First, he said the media outlet where she worked had to pledge to operate according to Taliban policies. Second, she should send any reporting to him for review before publication, and she should never use the term “Taliban group” (which is regarded as a term used by the Taliban’s enemies to delegitimize its rule). 

Rukhshana published the story with the information we had. The Taliban official later texted Arefi, asking her to provide him with the address and details of the media outlet where she worked. She declined, fearful that she could be arrested or harassed. 

We always have to tread carefully. In order to ensure the safety of our interviewees and reporters, we sometimes decline to publish sensitive stories. Once, we deleted a story from our website and social media accounts because I’d received a call from a man saying that if we didn’t delete it, “we will find your reporter.” 

‘I will never give up’

The remaining female journalists in Afghanistan have one thing in common: They love their work, and feel it is more vital than ever.  “I love journalism and I will never give up,” one Rukhshana journalist told me. Still, there are times when female reporters question themselves. A woman journalist for a television station in Kabul recently told Rukhshana that she can spend days trying to get comment or information from Taliban officials—without result. “This situation makes me more discouraged from working as a journalist every day,” she says.

Journalists also face financial stress. I started Rukhshana with the hope that when other media outlets realized the importance of our work, they might support us financially. But we did not receive that sort of backing, at least initially. Now that so many Afghan media organizations are shrinking or collapsing, such support is more important than ever, and even harder to get. 

Still, we’ve been very fortunate. Last year, a friend conducted a fundraising drive in Canada that brought in enough money to cover our operations for nearly a year, and more recently we received funding from Internews. We now have four full-time editors, seven staff reporters, and several freelancers who work for us regularly. We’re not exactly booming, but we’re far from folding. Too many women are rooting for us.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Zahra Joya.