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Preserving Borders vs. Preserving People: Death Toll Rises as Refugees Head to Europe Seeking Safety
The European Union has called for emergency talks to address the rapidly growing number of people fleeing to Europe to escape violence and unrest in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, approximately 2,500 people are believed to have died or gone missing trying to reach Europe so far this year. On Sunday, 37 people died when a boat capsized off the Libyan coast. This came just days after another boat capsized off the Libyan coast killing more than 200 people. Meanwhile, investigators in Hungary and Austrian authorities are continuing to probe the deaths of 71 people who were found abandoned last week inside a truck on the main highway between Budapest and Vienna. We speak to Joel Millman of the International Organization for Migration in Geneva; Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch; and Dr. Chiara Montaldo of Doctors Without Borders in the Sicilian town of Pozzallo in Italy. She has been providing medical and psychological care to people rescued from boats in the Mediterranean.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: The European Union has called for emergency talks to address the rapidly growing number of people fleeing to Europe to escape violence and unrest in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, sub-Saharan Africa and other regions. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, approximately 2,500 people are believed to have died or gone missing trying to reach Europe so far this year. On Sunday, 37 people died when a boat capsized off the Libyan coast. This came just days after another boat capsized off the Libyan coast killing more than 200 people. Meanwhile, investigators in Hungary and Austrian authorities are continuing to probe the deaths of 71 people who were found abandoned last week inside a truck on the main highway between Budapest and Vienna. On Friday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on governments to take action on the migrant crisis in Europe.
SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON: I am horrified and heartbroken as refugees and migrants are losing their lives in the Mediterranean, Europe and beyond. We have seen countless tragedies, most recently the grim discovery of more than 70 people who suffocated inside a truck in Austria. So many people have also drowned in the Mediterranean and also the Andaman Seas. We must understand why people are risking their lives: They are fleeing war, political instability and insecurity to seek a better future.
AMY GOODMAN: Hungary has responded to the situation by building a 109-mile-long razor-wire fence on its southern border. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports scenes of blatant racial profiling at Budapest’s main train station. Authorities allowed white and lighter-skinned people to pass through, but stopped and demanded papers from virtually all darker-skinned people. On Saturday alone, Hungary detained 3,000 people. Over the weekend, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius accused Hungary of adopting a, quote, "scandalous" policy toward refugees. He made the remarks during an interview.
FOREIGN MINISTER LAURENT FABIUS: [translated] With regard to all those people who are politically chased out of their country and who are in war-torn countries, we have to be able to welcome them. It’s called the plea for asylum, and every country has to respond to that—France, Germany, others. But when I see certain European countries that do not accept these groups, I find that scandalous.
REPORTER: [translated] Which countries are you speaking about?
FOREIGN MINISTER LAURENT FABIUS: [translated] Particularly countries that are situated in Eastern Europe.
REPORTER: [translated] Hungary, for example, what do you think of what’s going on there?
FOREIGN MINISTER LAURENT FABIUS: [translated] They are extremely harsh. Hungary is part of Europe, which has values. We do not respect those values by putting up fences.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the crisis, we’re joined by Joel Millman in Geneva, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration there. And here in New York, Ken Roth is with us, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! We also hope to go to the coast of Sicily, where migrants are pouring in to the coastal towns. But we’re going to start right now in Geneva. Joel Millman, talk about the extent of the crisis. I think it’s one that people in the United States are not very well aware of.
JOEL MILLMAN: Well, we’re up 322,000 seaborne crossings into Europe, principally from Turkey into Greece and from Libya into Italy. This is, with four months to go in this year, 2015, we’re already ahead of where we were last year at the end of August—I’m sorry, where we were for the whole, at 219,000. So we’re 100,000 above that and with another third of the year to go.
These are people that are fleeing principally a handful of countries. Syria is number one, Eritrea, Somalia; now Afghanistan has become very prominent, as well—all people that generally, from those places, would merit consideration for asylum and resettlement. So, the tragedy is that people that would be treated as refugees by Europe under almost any circumstance are risking their lives for the opportunity to petition for something that most countries in the world think they already deserve.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the—what is fueling this mass migration, from Africa, from the Middle East, from around all of the surrounding countries around Europe.
JOEL MILLMAN: Well, we can’t be naïve. I mean, what’s fueling it is the conflict and the stress that’s happening in a few societies. However, it’s the lawlessness of places like Syria and Libya right now that deny Europe and the rest of the world any kind of government partner that they can access to try to control or manage this migration flow. We understand that there are demographic imperatives involved, that Europe has a falling birth rate. There’s a huge demand for cheap labor, skilled and unskilled, and there’s a huge dearth of jobs in the countries where these individuals are coming from. But the fact is, this is not a new condition. This has gone on for decades and had been managed. They’ve been managed with governments that aren’t altogether savory to us, like Gaddafi’s government in Libya. However, in the absence of real authority, criminal gangs have stepped up and opportunistically decided to start trafficking in migrants. Quite a number of these cases are people that may not have intended to go to Europe at all in the first place and have been kidnapped and coerced and stuffed onto boats. So we’ve seen that to a great degree, particularly in Tripoli and the western part of Libya. But, obviously, it’s the inability of any government to control this effectively that’s created the opportunity for lots of criminal gangs. And they’re moving—while the profits are high, they’re moving as many people as they can.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the Schengen Agreement is?
JOEL MILLMAN: Well, it’s an agreement that is among European countries, not solely those of the European Union, to be able to transit freely throughout the continent. It’s to facilitate tourism and trade, and it’s worked quite well for many decades, principally because, you know, Europeans are very affluent, and they follow rules very well, and, until recently, there wasn’t quite a lot of people coming sort of irregularly—is the term we like to use—from outside Europe. Unfortunately, this is not a system built to make for orderly—you know, orderly transit through Europe when people that aren’t there with documents or aren’t there with valid visas start coming in these numbers. And the numbers are huge, as we discussed.
AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of migrants have sought shelter in a makeshift shantytown in the coastal town of Calais. This is an Afghan refugee named Wahib describing his experience there on the eve of a visit from European officials and French ministers.
WAHIB: Nobody is, like, treating us like as a human being here, you know? Everybody and police are—if you go, like, to city, some police see us, "Hey," go, "jungle, jungle." Like, we are human beings, so—they call us "jungle." You can see that, you know? So, it’s like very embarrassing for me recently. I cannot say about other people, but for me it’s like very embarrassing. It’s just because that our country is not, like, good. It’s—we cannot stay there. There’s a war.
AMY GOODMAN: Joel Millman, if you could respond to what this migrant is saying? Joel Millman, speaking to us by video stream from Geneva, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration.
JOEL MILLMAN: Well, it’s tragic, obviously. The individual that was just interviewed, I mean, he’s an English speaker. It’s not perfect English, but obviously he’s educated. Obviously, he’s made it all the way from Afghanistan to Calais. These are people that show tremendous resolve. Sometimes they have resources, and often they have great education. They’re able—they would be able to thrive, integrate well in any society, particularly in Europe or North America. And yet, you know, regulations and rules against transit are keeping them in countries where their lives are often at risk. And we don’t—we are no longer seeing these people as members of our society and welcome; we’re seeing them as threats, especially if they come from Muslim countries. And it’s true. I mean, they’re reduced to living in squalor, which we think is beneath the dignity of any human being, much less a migrant.
AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling on the European Union to do right now, Joel Millman?
JOEL MILLMAN: Well, mostly to be flexible. I mean, we don’t lobby particularly; we’re not an advocacy group. And we don’t think it’s proper to single Europe out, as many have, as not doing its share. I mean, Europe has taken on a tremendous burden and have done so even though it’s a system that’s shared by 28 countries in the EU, and then, of course, all the other countries not in the EU. They’re trying to find a way to turn what had been a uniform policy into something more flexible, and I think they’ve made pretty good strides. I mean, Germany last week talked about shelving the Dublin rule, which insists that an asylum seeker only accept asylum from the first country he arrives in, which clearly isn’t working. I mean, hundreds of thousands have crossed into Italy in the last two years, and very few of them stay there. They all want to go to northern Europe or Germany or U.K. So, this is the kind of flexibility that we’d like to see more of.
Obviously, we want more resettlement, more resettlement quotas. We want people in Europe to understand that it’s not a zero-sum game between letting them drown, on one hand, or giving them asylum and access to every benefit in the society, on the other. There are many, many solutions in between. I mean, there’s temporary protected status. There’s humanitarian resettlement. There’s all kinds of things that governments have done for decades that only require a little bit of clear thinking and a political will. You know, here at IOM, we often reflect that it was four years ago this summer that the world was faced with the so-called boat people crisis in Southeast Asia. And the speed and the diligence with which countries as far afield as Canada and the U.S., France, Australia, Thailand and others all pitched in and found solutions for millions of people over a very short period of time and resettled them so successfully is something to be inspired by. And, you know, you often feel like, "What’s happened with the world? They used to have solutions for these kind of crises, and now they seem to only have excuses for why they can’t act." We know we can do better. We know that we will, with time.
AMY GOODMAN: Joel Millman, I want to thank you for being with us, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration, speaking to us by video stream from Geneva, Switzerland. When we come back, we’re going to go to the front line to a coastal town in Sicily, where migrants are pouring in, overwhelming the communities, communities without solutions. We’ll also be joined by the head of Human Rights Watch here in New York, Kenneth Roth. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve been listening to the Migrant Choir. This is a collaborative public choral piece that was staged at the Venice Biennale in mid-August this year as part of the Creative Time Summit. Migrants gathered from around the world. They came to Venice, and they sang in front of three countries that have turned immigrants away, in front of Italy, in front of the British Pavilion, as well as in front of the French Pavilion. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue to look at this massive global crisis.
The Mediterranean Sea has become one of the world’s deadliest borders, as more than 340,000 people displaced by war and violence have attempted to reach Europe this year. We go now to the coast of Sicily to Dr. Chiara Montaldo, a coordinator with Doctors Without Borders in Pozzallo, Sicily, Italy, providing medical and psychological care to migrants and refugees rescued from boats in the Mediterranean. She recently wrote a piece for The Guardian called "We see more and more unaccompanied children on migrant boats."
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Dr. Montaldo. Describe what is happening in just your town alone, in Pozzallo, where you’re working.
DR. CHIARA MONTALDO: Yes, good afternoon. What is happening here, we are receiving migrants since almost two years now. And honestly, the condition of the people we receive are worse and worse, not so much for the traveling in the sea, but really for the condition in Libya, in all the migration way before to come here. And the main point where they are now victim of violence is for sure Libya, where all the people that we talk with, they really tell us that now is really the hell. This is the word that they often use to describe Libya, is the "hell." There is no security. Many people have been really tortured or have been beaten. They come with the wounds and burns. Many women, but also many men, are raped. So, now what we see, unfortunately, are the consequences of the worsening of the situation in Libya. This is clear.
AMY GOODMAN: You retweeted someone writing, "We are alive only because we are not dead."
DR. CHIARA MONTALDO: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Montaldo, explain.
DR. CHIARA MONTALDO: Yeah, most of the people that we are receiving now are really escaping from death. So, why they risk their life in the sea? They know very well now that the sea is like Russian roulette. So, they can die, they know, because now there are more and more shipwreck and tragedies in the sea. But still they keep coming. Why? Because their condition in their own countries are worsening. First of all, Syria, of course, but not only Syria—Eritrea, Somalia, Nigeria. So, all these people are really escaping from a situation where the risk of life is really high, higher than the trip in the sea. So that’s why they keep coming. Not only this, because actually we receive people from many different nationalities, but many of them, they were already living in Libya. And now, as I told you, the situation is always worse and worse, so all these people, really, most of them, they come because they don’t have choice, and especially because they don’t have other alternatives to this trip in the sea. So, unfortunately, some of them, they could afford to buy a ticket, if they could, but there is no possibility, because there are no legal way in this moment allowing them to reach safely Europe or any way a safe place.
AMY GOODMAN: The piece, Dr. Montaldo, that you wrote in The Guardian, you write of the chemical burns on the people, especially who were in the hold of the boats. And you write about how the lighter-skinned immigrants will be above, and the darker-skinned immigrants, for example, from Africa, are below, where they’re more likely to get burned, because the immigrants fear that if darker-skinned people are seen, they’re more likely to be turned away.
DR. CHIARA MONTALDO: Yeah, yeah, the chemical burn are symptoms that we see quite often, in some type of landing. It means whenever the boat has some problem of fuel leaking. So sometimes the fuel come out, and because they are sit all in the boat, especially in the lower part of the body, the legs, they have these really burn, like a fire burn, but they are caused by the fuel. And sometimes they are really severe. Sometimes we need to admit them. Sometimes we can treat them at the first reception center.
And it is true that, unfortunately, even in the boat, there is a kind of hierarchy. All of them, unfortunately, are desperate, but there is a kind of a different kind of despair, because, unfortunately, even in the boat, there is a first and second class, if we can say like that. And so, the last of the chain, often they have the worst places, the places more dangerous. And we see more and more people who died because they are in the—they stay in the lower part of the boat, which is normally the more—the most dangerous, because they cannot breathe sometimes. The fuel is there, and the gas of the boat—they are there. So, for example, two days ago, one of our team received people survived from this tragedy. Fifty people died because they were in the lower part of the boat. And they were probably without oxygen, and they died. Unfortunately, in these kind of tragedies, the people in the boat, maybe like yesterday, 400 people in the boat, they fight for life. This is normal. This situation put them in a situation where even in between them sometimes there are tension, and everybody try to save their own life.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your message for Europeans who say, "We have too many problems of our own. We have to send these people back," Dr. Montaldo?
DR. CHIARA MONTALDO: Honestly, I think that in front of what we are facing now—people dying, people without alternative—I think that this discussion to send them back, to block our borders are really—for me, they are—we should not discuss about this. We should discuss how to help people who is trying now to save their life. How can we still be here asking ourself should we block them or should not? How can we still be here to think how to protect ourself? I think that all our discussion are to protect ourself. But for me and for my organization, the priority is not protect ourself, is not protect our borders, but to help people who are dying. And they will continue to die if we don’t do anything. And our fences, our barriers and our border are the cause of many of these deaths.
AMY GOODMAN: The issue of what people should be called, aside, of course, from simply "human beings" and "people"—"migrants," "refugees"—what do they prefer? And do you think they should be granted political asylum?
DR. CHIARA MONTALDO: So, what I think and what we think is that we prefer to call always the people "people," "human being," because for us what is important is to provide the care of the people in need, whoever they are, if they are refugees, if they are—whoever they are. So, we always prefer to call people "people," "human beings." Then, of course, there are differences, because some of them, they escape from the war; some of them, they escape from extreme poverty; some of them, they are victim of trafficking. So, there are many, many different people and many different reason for which people are escaping now. But, for us, this doesn’t matter. These, for us, are human beings in need, in extreme need, human beings escaping from death, very often, or, anyway, from very dangerous situation. So, yes, we always prefer to call them "human being."
AMY GOODMAN: We are also joined by Kenneth Roth here in New York, executive director of Human Rights Watch. You have put out numerous reports on the situation of people who are migrating as a result of conflict, persecution, hunger, all the different reasons they do. What do you think has to happen now, Ken?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, Amy, let me first put this in perspective, because, you know, we’re talking about a crisis. And yes, 310,000, 320,000 people are a lot of people. But Europe’s population as a whole is about 500 million. So what we’re talking about, the number of people who have come this year is less than 0.1 percent of Europe’s population. Now, compare that to the United States, where undocumented people in this country are about 11 million. That’s about 3.5 percent of the U.S. population. So, in other words, the U.S. population has completely integrated massive more people, a much larger percentage than Europe is facing. Indeed, the U.S. has built an economy around these people, so that it would be difficult to send them back. We’re having a debate now about a path to citizenship, but realistically, these people are here to stay, and the U.S. has just incorporated them.
So, this is not really a crisis. I mean, Europe is perfectly able to manage integrating 0.1 percent of its population. The problem is, it doesn’t want to—at least some people don’t want to. We’ve seen real leadership. You saw the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, saying—very powerfully speaking for the need to welcome these people. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has also been very outspoken in this regard. So, we are seeing some leadership in Europe, but the right wing, in particular, is demagoguing this issue and is creating real problems, which are not real problems, they’re political problems.
AMY GOODMAN: So what exactly should the European Union do right now?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, it’s important to recognize that a very substantial percentage of these people are refugees. That is to say, they’re fleeing conflict and persecution. Yes, there are some economic migrants among them, but most at least have a right not to be sent back to persecution. And once they land on European soil, they actually have a right to have their asylum claim adjudicated, and if indeed they are found to be refugees, as most of them will be, they’re entitled to stay.
So what Europe needs to do is to stop treating the Mediterranean or the often-dangerous land crossing, stop treating sort of drowning and death, as a way of preserving its borders. It needs to find safe and legal routes for these people who really do need to flee, a way for them to get to Europe without risking their lives. And, you know, we’ve seen modest steps in that direction. If you look at sort of the way Europe has responded to the Mediterranean Sea crossing, when the Italians were in charge, they had something called Mare Nostrum, which very much focused on protecting people. The European Union then took over about a year ago with Operation Triton and put a priority on preserving Europe’s borders over protecting people—until this last spring, when a thousand people died in the course of one week, and then it changed. But I’m not sure if it’s changed enough, because even just this weekend we’ve seen a number of drownings off the Libyan coast. Europe should be patrolling much more aggressively near the Mediterranean coast to try to rescue people as quickly as possible, so they’re not continuing to use drowning as a way of preserving Europe’s borders.
AMY GOODMAN: So what does the United States have to do with it? I mean, you have these massive conflicts that have roiled the globe. Do we have a responsibility here?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, yes. If you look at why people are fleeing—let’s take the Syrians, who are the largest percentage. In an ordinary war, you can get some degree of protection by moving away from the front lines. But in Syria, Assad is dropping barrel bombs in the middle of civilian neighborhoods that happen to be controlled by the opposition. There is no safe place to move in Syria if you’re in opposition-held territory, which is why we have 4 million refugees from Syria today. So one very important thing to do is to go to the root causes of this, to try to put real pressure on Assad to stop barrel-bombing civilians, and to take comparable steps in the other major refugee-producing countries, like Somalia, Eritrea and Afghanistan. You know, let’s not forget why we have this crisis. It’s not that everybody woke up this morning and thought it would be nice to move to Europe. These people are being forced out because of severe conflict and persecution.
AMY GOODMAN: And do you see connections between what we’re seeing in the United States—I mean, you have the Republican rhetoric; you have Donald Trump saying build a wall, Mexicans are rapists, all 11 million undocumented people should be deported; you have Chris Christie saying they should be treated like FedEx packages and tracked. What are the connections you see between what’s happening in the United States and what’s happening in Europe?
KENNETH ROTH: Well, there are commonalities between the right wing in both Europe and the United States. And what this is really about is some sense that the migrants are somehow destroying American culture or European culture, that these societies cannot incorporate the changes that would result from welcoming in, you know, hundreds of thousands or, in some cases in the U.S., millions of people. Now, the United States, in fact, is just fine. In fact, it’s been greatly enriched by the immigration. And it’s not as if American culture is radically different today from what it was, you know, two or three decades ago. It’s not as if American democracy is in jeopardy. But this is nonetheless an argument that the right wing likes to put forward, that the American way of life is in jeopardy. And you see very similar arguments in Europe, aggravated by the fact that so many of these asylum seekers and migrants are Muslims. And there’s this terrifying fear in Europe that, you know, largely Christian Europe is somehow going to changed for the worse because a handful of Muslims are going to come in. And so there is this unfortunate right-wing, racist commonality.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Ken Roth, for being with us. I hope you’ll stay, because we’re going to be talking about Egypt soon with Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Cairo, the three Al Jazeera reporters that were just sentenced to three years in prison. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights [Watch] here in New York. And thanks so much to Dr. Chiara Montaldo, who is coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, speaking to us from Pozzallo in Sicily, Italy. Of course, we’ll continue to follow this issue.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, though, we’re going north to Alaska. President Obama is there. He’s renaming the tallest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley—he’s renaming it Denali. And we will talk about climate change in Alaska, before we go to Cairo. Stay with us.
"Our Climate, Our Future": As Obama Visits Arctic, Alaskans Urge Him to Reverse Shell Oil Deal
Weeks after approving Shell’s plans to drill in Alaska, President Obama is heading to the state to warn about the dangers of climate change. "Alaska’s glaciers are melting faster, too, threatening tourism and adding to rising seas," Obama said in his weekly address. A protest is scheduled today in Anchorage to urge Obama to reverse his decision on Shell and stop all exploratory drilling in the Arctic. We speak to Richard Steiner, an Alaskan marine conservation biologist, who is speaking at the "Our Climate, Our Future" rally.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama arrives in Alaska today, where he’s becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit Arctic Alaska. He talked about his trip during his weekly address.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I’ll have several opportunities to meet with everyday Alaskans about what’s going on in their lives. I’ll travel throughout the state, meet with Alaskans who live above the Arctic Circle, with Alaska Natives and with folks who earn their livelihoods through fishing and tourism. And I expect to learn a lot.
One thing I’ve learned so far is that a lot of these conversations begin with climate change. And that’s because Alaskans are already living with its effects—more frequent and extensive wildfires; bigger storm surges as sea ice melts faster; some of the swiftest shoreline erosion in the world, in some places more than three feet a year. Alaska’s glaciers are melting faster, too, threatening tourism and adding to rising seas. And if we do nothing, Alaskan temperatures are projected to rise between six and 12 degrees by the end of the century, changing all sorts of industries forever.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, President Obama will deliver a speech at the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience, or GLACIER, to address the crucial climate challenges in the Arctic. Obama’s visit to the Arctic comes on the heels of his administration’s decision to approve Shell’s plans to begin oil extraction off the Alaskan coast this summer, despite protest from environmental groups.
Also, ahead of the trip, President Obama announced the name of North America’s tallest mountain peak will be changed from Mount McKinley back to Denali, its traditional Alaska Native name. Ohio’s congressional delegation had fought to defend the name McKinley, which honors former President William McKinley, who was from Ohio. But Alaska Natives have long viewed the name as imperialist.
Well, for more, we go to Anchorage, where we’re joined by Rick Steiner via Democracy Now! video stream, a marine conservation biologist, former professor at the University of Alaska. Today, Dr. Steiner will speak at the "Our Climate, Our Future" rally convened by a coalition of Alaskan grassroots groups ahead of President Obama’s speech. He’s involved in the emergency response to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and proposed the court settlement and major thrust of the restoration program for habitat protection. He has now started a petition called "Tell President Obama to designate Marine National Monuments in Alaska," which just surpassed 100,000 signers.
Rick Steiner, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about what you’ll be saying in your speech today and why you’re protesting President Obama, who’s the first sitting president to come to the Alaskan Arctic to address the issue of climate change.
RICK STEINER: Well, thanks, Amy. It’s good to be back. And yeah, I think President Obama has been good on climate. He’s probably been the best president in the history of the nation on climate change. But the problem is, he hasn’t been good enough. The commitments that he has made are not enough to turn the tide on climate change. We’re on a sinking boat, and it’s like we’re taking on two gallons of water—excuse me—every minute, and we’re bailing one gallon. So, it’s a recognition that they’ve made that there’s a serious problem here, but it’s not enough to fix the problem. This is an enormous threat in Alaska. We’re living it daily. We’re in crisis. And we need to have a response that’s commensurate with the crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what Alaskan—what drilling off the Alaskan coast will mean—all of the environmentalists, the "kayaktivists," the people who hung from the bridges to try to prevent Shell from moving its rigs to Alaska to drill, to the Arctic.
RICK STEINER: Well, in a real sense, we think it’s somewhat—it seems somewhat hypocritical to, on the one hand, say we’re concerned about climate change, and the scientific community is very clear that we need to be leaving maybe two-thirds of the hydrocarbon reserves, the oil and gas and coal around the world, right where it is right now, in the ground and in the seabed, in order to be able to stabilize global climate in the future. The best place to start doing that, in our view, is this new frontier of the Arctic, in which there’s something like 100 billion tons of carbon. Now, to the climate, it probably doesn’t matter if the ton of carbon comes from the Middle East or the Gulf of Mexico or Africa or the Arctic, but the optics of this are very worrying. It shows us that if we’re going to go ahead and drill for oil offshore in the Arctic Ocean, impose this industrialization and disturbance and this huge spill risk to this extraordinary ecosystem—it shows us that we may not be really serious enough, with enough resolve, to actually want to leave carbon in the ground and in the seabed, which is what we know we need to do. So it’s worrisome to many people who are concerned about climate.
AMY GOODMAN: Rick Steiner, you ultimately resigned from the University of Alaska around your views and scholarship on environmental protection. Can you talk about what happened, and talk more broadly about the power of the oil industry?
RICK STEINER: Well, the oil industry is God in Alaska. That’s the way it’s viewed by many politicians. It’s responsible—oil revenues run the state of Alaska budget. It constitutes something like 80 or 90 percent of Alaska’s state revenues. It’s a big deal in Alaska. And it has this political momentum around it. So all the institutions—the university is extraordinarily pro-oil, and so are the state agencies and even the federal agencies here. And I’ve seen that all over the world, where a large oil industry develops—in Africa, in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia—and has this peculiar political momentum.
In Alaska, the university did not want me seeking and teaching my truth publicly, that there were concerns and risks about offshore drilling in Alaska. And they didn’t want me saying that. I argued that I had the—not just the right, but the responsibility, to seek and teach that truth. That was part of my—the work I was doing on behalf of the university. I complained about the risks of one particular offshore drilling project in Bristol Bay, and the university terminated my federal funding because of that. I argued with them, and then I ultimately said the heck with it, and I resigned on principle, that I was not going to pretend to work for an institution that pretended to honor academic freedom and, in the end, actually didn’t. So I resigned. The problem is, is the university still—I mean, everybody else has this very clear message right now that thou shalt not criticize oil in Alaska, or else your position is at risk.
AMY GOODMAN: In the last minute we have together, we are leading up to the U.N. climate summit in Paris.
RICK STEINER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think needs to happen?
RICK STEINER: Well, certainly, the U.S. needs to double down on the commitments that President Obama has made so far. The U.S. declared commitment is something like 28 to 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. That’s good, but about half of what we need at Paris. The big deal, as well, is, the U.S. agreement with China last year allows China to continue increasing their carbon emissions until 2030—for the next 15 years. And conceivably, China could then double their carbon emissions by the time that this agreement requires them to cap their emissions and begin reducing it. When President Obama meets with President Xi Jinping next month in Washington, they should revisit that deal and get China to commit to earlier and more substantial greenhouse gas reductions. And that—you know, Paris is the make-or-break game. Either we get this strong, urgent, legally binding deal in Paris, or I think we’re kind of sunk. So, Paris is a make-or-break deal.
AMY GOODMAN: Rick Steiner, I want to thank you for being with us, marine conservation biologist, former professor at University of Alaska. Today he will be speaking at the "Our Climate, Our Future" rally ahead of President Obama’s speech. He’s started a petition that has now more than 100,000 signatures, "Tell President Obama to designate Marine National Monuments in Alaska." This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
As Al Jazeera Journalists Are Jailed for 3 Years in Egypt, Will U.S. Stop "Cozying Up" to Regime?
In Egypt, Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste were sentenced over the weekend to three years in jail for "spreading false news" that purportedly harmed Egypt following the 2013 military coup. Fahmy and Mohamed were taken into custody on Saturday. Greste remains free in Australia. The three had already spent more than a year in prison before being released on bail earlier this year. We speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous in Cairo and with Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. should stop cozying up to General—now President—Sisi," Roth says. "He is presiding over the worst crackdown in modern Egypt history."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We head to Cairo, Egypt, where Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste were sentenced over the weekend to three years in jail for, quote, "spreading false news" that harmed Egypt following the 2013 military coup. That’s what they were convicted of. Fahmy’s wife, Marwa Omara, broke down in tears as the sentence was announced on Saturday.
MARWA OMARA: It was extremely unjust and was extremely unfair. And what happened with Mohamed shows how much this case is political. And it’s so unfair what’s happening to him. ... We got married, and I didn’t even enjoy our marriage with him.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were taken back into custody. The third journalist, Peter Greste, spoke out against the ruling from Australia, where he was deported to.
PETER GRESTE: The fact is that we did nothing wrong, that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, that these guys are innocent men, and innocent men are in prison. That’s what this is about. Never mind the sentences. One day in prison would be unjust.
AMY GOODMAN: Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who represents Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy, has called on President el-Sisi to pardon the men. The three were initially arrested as part of a crackdown on Al Jazeera following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, sentenced last June to between seven and 10 years in prison, a ruling condemned around the world. Peter Greste was released in February, deported home to Australia. Shortly afterwards, following more than 400 days behind bars, Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were also freed on bail. The case has been widely condemned. Fahmy and Mohamed were led away to begin their sentences after Saturday’s verdict. Greste was tried in absentia.
To find out more, we go to Egypt, to Cairo, by Democracy Now! video stream to be joined by Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous.
Sharif, can you talk about the response right now in Egypt and the significance of these sentences?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, it’s a really stunning verdict. Many people were expecting that the journalists would be—receive some kind of sentence that would be time served or a suspended sentence, especially given that Egyptian officials had repeatedly signaled that they viewed the trial as a nuisance, that it brought unwanted scrutiny of the Egyptian government. Sisi himself has said several times in the past that he would have deported the journalists rather than try them, and he wished the case had never—the prosecution had never been brought.
And nevertheless, in a really heartbreaking and shocking scene, we saw the three journalists yesterday sentenced to three years in prison. They were hauled away to jail. The judge said in his verdict that they were not journalists because they lacked the necessary credentials. He said they were using unlicensed equipment and broadcasting false news that harmed Egypt’s national security. This last accusation is especially shocking, given that during the trial the judge appointed a technical committee to look at the footage, and the head of that committee testified that none of the video evidence, the footage, had been fabricated. And nevertheless the judge included that in his ruling.
So, you know, this is the latest twist in this long ordeal that had began in December 2013 for these journalists, and we’ll have to wait and see what will happen next. As you mentioned, Canada has put an official request for deportation for Mohamed Fahmy. They’ve also called for a presidential pardon from Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The president can—President Sisi can pardon them at any point. He does not have to wait until the end of the judicial proceedings. He’s pardoned people in the past. And that’s what—that would be the best-case scenario in this respect. Another one would be the deportation of Mohamed Fahmy, but that would leave Baher Mohamed behind bars. Baher Mohamed got an extra six months in prison and a 5,000-pound fine for possessing a single spent bullet casing.
And so, this was just the latest verdict in, you know, part of a broader crackdown that we’ve seen in Egypt against the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists recently did a survey, found that 18 or now over 20 journalists are behind bars. That’s the highest number since the CPJ has been keeping records in 1990 for Egypt.
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif—
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: There’s—
AMY GOODMAN: Sharif, I wanted to play the comment of Amal Clooney, Mohamed Fahmy’s attorney, denouncing the verdict.
AMAL CLOONEY: I think today sends a very dangerous message in Egypt. It sends the message that journalists can be locked up for simply doing their job, for telling the truth and reporting the news. And it sends a dangerous message that there are judges in Egypt who will allow their courts to become instruments of political repression and propaganda.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Amal Clooney, Mohamed Fahmy’s lawyer. We’re also joined by Ken Roth. Is there anything the United States can do, considering how many billions of dollars it gives to Egypt?
KENNETH ROTH: Yes, the U.S. should stop cozying up to General—now President—Sisi. He is presiding over the worst crackdown in modern Egypt history, much worse than anything that happened under Mubarak. As your colleague noted, there are 22 journalists in prison right now. There are 40,000 political prisoners. The U.S., nonetheless, is just opening the spigots for military aid. It’s selling equipment. It’s sending the message that we’ll live with this dictator because he’s pro-American, pro-Western. That is a disastrous message for the Egyptian people.
AMY GOODMAN: Should the U.S. cut off aid?
KENNETH ROTH: Absolutely. It should never have resumed the aid. It resumed the aid because, ostensibly, Egypt is on a transition to democracy. But I think John Kerry is the only person in the world who sees that transition.
AMY GOODMAN: Ken Roth, I want to thank you for being with us, executive director of Human Rights Watch. And, Sharif, thanks for joining us from Cairo, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! correspondent in Egypt.
Headlines:
EU Calls Emergency Talks on Migrant Crisis
The European Union has called for emergency talks to address the rapidly growing number of people fleeing to Europe to escape violence and unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. On Sunday, 37 people died when a boat capsized off the Libyan coast. This came just days after another boat capsized off the Libyan coast killing more than 200 people. Meanwhile, investigators in Hungary and Austria are continuing to probe the deaths of 71 people who were found abandoned last week inside a truck on the main highway between Budapest and Vienna. Melissa Fleming, a spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency, said the number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe has passed 300,000 this year.
Melissa Fleming: "The number of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean this year has now exceeded 300,000. That includes 200,000 people landing in Greece and 110,000 in Italy. This represents a large increase from last year, when about 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean during the whole of 2014."
We’ll have more on the migrant crisis after headlines.
Obama Arrives in Alaska for Trip Focused on Climate
President Obama arrives in Alaska today for a three-day trip, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Arctic. Obama is expected to emphasize the impact of climate change on the heels of his administration’s decision to allow Shell to resume oil drilling in the Arctic, a move environmentalists warn will fuel climate change. We’ll have more on the visit later in the broadcast.
Obama to Restore Mount McKinley’s Alaska Native Name, "Denali"
On the eve of his trip to Alaska, Obama announced the name of North America’s tallest mountain peak will be changed from Mount McKinley to Denali—its traditional Alaska Native name. Ohio’s congressional delegation had fought to defend the name McKinley, which honors former President William McKinley, who was from Ohio. But Alaska Natives have long viewed the name as imperialist.
Dominica: Tropical Storm Erika Kills 20, Wreaks "Monumental" Damage
Obama’s trip to Alaska comes amid the latest extreme weather fueled by global warming. Tropical Storm Erika battered the Caribbean island of Dominica late last week, killing at least 20 people and leaving 31 missing. Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said the island had been set back 20 years by the damage, which he described as "monumental." Scientists have warned climate change will cause tropical storms like Erika to intensify.
Yemen: 36 Civilians Killed by Saudi-Led Strike on Bottling Plant
In Yemen, a Saudi-led airstrike has killed 36 civilians working at a bottling plant in the northern governorate of Hajjah. Another attack on the Yemeni capital Sana’a hit a house and killed four civilians.
Report: Saudi-Led Forces Used U.S.-Made Cluster Munitions in Yemen
The latest strikes in Yemen come amid new evidence the Saudi-led forces have used cluster munitions in Yemen. Human Rights Watch said it found U.S.-made cluster munition rockets likely used in at least seven attacks in Hajjah governorate between late April and mid-July. Dozens of civilians were killed or wounded, both during the attacks and later, when they picked up unexploded submunitions that detonated. Neither the United States, Saudi Arabia or Yemen have joined the global convention banning the use of cluster munitions.
Egypt: Al Jazeera Journalists Sentenced to 3 Years in Jail
In Egypt, Al Jazeera journalists Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste have been sentenced to three years in jail for "spreading false news" that purportedly harmed Egypt following the 2013 military coup. The three were initially arrested as part of a crackdown on Al Jazeera following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Fahmy and Mohamed were led away to begin their sentences after Saturday’s verdict. Greste was tried in absentia. The sentencing came as Egypt announced it will hold long-awaited parliamentary elections in October. We’ll go to Egypt to speak with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous later in the broadcast.
Syria: ISIL Destroys Part of Key Temple in Palmyra
In Syria, the self-proclaimed Islamic State has reportedly destroyed part of the most important temple in the ancient city of Palmyra. It remains unclear how much of the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel was destroyed by a large explosion reported in the area. ISIL has occupied Palmyra since May and recently destroyed another ancient building, the Temple of Baalshamin. The news came after Turkish warplanes joined the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL for the first time Friday, carrying out strikes in Syria.
Japan: 120,000 Protest Push to Rewrite Peace Constitution
In Japan, as many as 120,000 people took to the streets of Tokyo to protest new legislation to let Japanese troops fight abroad for the first time since World War II. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has backed the effort to rewrite Japan’s pacifist constitution. On Sunday, in one of the largest demonstrations in Japan since World War II, protesters, including Mami Aoji, called for peace and Abe’s resignation.
Mami Aoji: "If I were to describe Japan with one phrase, it would be 'a peaceful nation.' But right now, the unimaginable, the unrealistic is happening, where peace is being destroyed. That fear is being cast upon this nation right now."
Malaysia: Up to 300,000 Demand PM Resign over Financial Scandal
In Malaysia, hundreds of thousands took part in protests against Prime Minister Najib Razak, calling for him to resign over a financial scandal. Organizers said 300,000 people turned out to protest reports the prime minister received about $700 million in his private accounts, which he has said came from a donor in the Middle East. Najib fired a number of officials critical of him, including the attorney general investigating the financial transfer.
Texas: Suspect in Killing of Deputy Spent Time in Sheriff-Run Jail
In Texas, a man has been arrested and charged with murder for allegedly shooting a sheriff’s deputy at a gas station in the Houston area. Shannon Miles is accused of approaching Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth while he pumped gas and shooting him from behind. While no motive has been identified, Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman placed blame on recent protests over police brutality.
Sheriff Ron Hickman: "Our system of justice absolutely requires law enforcement be present to protect our community, so at any point where the rhetoric ramps up to the point where calculated, cold-blooded assassination of police officers happen, this rhetoric has gotten out of control. We’ve heard black lives matter, all lives matter. Well, cops’ lives matter, too. So why don’t we just drop the qualifier and just say lives matter and take that to the bank?"
The suspect in the shooting had been arrested on a series of misdemeanor charges several years ago and had served time at the Harris County Jail, which is run by the sheriff’s office.
Texas: Video Shows Deputies Killing Man After He Raised Both Hands
In other news from Texas, bystander video appears to show sheriff’s deputies near San Antonio fatally shooting a man Friday just after he raised his hands in surrender. Cellphone footage broadcast by a local ABC station shows a man suspected of domestic violence raising his hands in the air. The station froze the footage just before deputies opened fire, killing the man. Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau acknowledged the video is "cause for concern." An investigation is underway.
West Bank: Female Relatives Free Boy from Israeli Soldier
In news from the West Bank, footage of an Israeli soldier pinning down a 12-year-old boy, while the boy’s female relatives fight to free him, has gone viral. The video and photos were taken Friday in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh at a protest against Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law. The footage shows the soldier putting Mohammed Tamimi in a headlock and pinning him down. The boy’s mother, aunt and sister scuffle with the soldier; at one point, the sister appears to bite the soldier’s hand, and he eventually releases the boy. The Israeli army said the child was throwing stones, a claim denied by witnesses.
Sanders Closes in on Clinton in Iowa Poll
On the campaign trail, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has continued to surge in popularity against Hillary Clinton. A new poll in Iowa shows Sanders running just seven points behind Clinton with 30 percent support. Clinton has lost a third of her supporters since the last survey in May, while Sanders has nearly doubled his share of the vote. An earlier poll in New Hampshire showed Sanders leading Clinton by seven points in that key primary state.
Christie Says He Would Track Immigrants Like FedEx Packages
On the Republican side, Donald Trump has continued his lead, surging to 23 percent support in the Iowa poll. On Saturday, hundreds of immigrants rallied outside Trump’s speech in Nashville, Tennessee, protesting Trump for vowing to deport all undocumented people and for calling Mexican immigrants "rapists." Fellow Republican candidate New Jersey Governor Chris Christie meanwhile told an audience in New Hampshire Saturday he would track immigrants like FedEx packages.
Gov. Chris Christie: "So here’s what I’m going to do as president. I’m going to ask Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, come work for the government for three months. Just come for three months to Immigration and Custom Enforcement and show these people. Because guess what. Of the 11 million people who are here illegally, 40 percent of them didn’t come in over the southern border; 40 percent of them came in legally with a visa and overstayed their visa. We need to have a system that tracks you from the moment you come in, and then when your time is up, whether it’s three months or six months or nine months or 12 months, however long your visa is, then we go get you."
Republican presidential contender and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has also made headlines with his most recent remarks on immigration, telling NBC’s Meet the Press building a wall between the United States and Canada is a "legitimate issue for us to look at."
Virginia: Black Man Dies in Jail After 4 Months for $5 Theft
In Virginia, a mentally ill African-American man has been found dead in his jail cell after he spent four months behind bars for allegedly stealing $5 worth of food from a 7-Eleven. The Guardian reports Jamycheal Mitchell was arrested by Portsmouth police in April for allegedly stealing a Mountain Dew, a Snickers bar and a pastry. A judge had ordered Mitchell’s transfer to a mental hospital, but when there were no beds available, he was kept behind bars, without bail. He was found dead August 19. His family believes he starved to death after refusing medication and food in jail. He was 24 years old.
Highest-Ranking Vatican Official to Be Charged with Sex Abuse Dies
Jozef Wesolowski, the former Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, has died while awaiting trial for sexually abusing boys. Wesolowski was accused of abusing and taking pornographic photos of poor shoeshine boys in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo. He would have been the first high-level cleric to stand trial before a Vatican tribunal on charges of child sexual abuse. He was found dead in his Vatican home Friday of what officials say appear to be natural causes. He was 67.
Renowned Neurologist Oliver Sacks Dies at 82
The renowned neurologist and author Oliver Sacks has died at the age of 82. Sacks wrote the best-selling book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," among other works. He announced in February he was in the late stages of terminal cancer after a melanoma in his eye spread to his liver. He died at home in Manhattan on Sunday.
Bush Dances at Katrina Anniversary Event in New Orleans
And as New Orleans marked the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina this weekend, former President George W. Bush returned to the city, prompting protests over his delayed response to the disaster at the time. One protester held a sign with a well-known photograph of Bush, days after Katrina, looking out of an airplane window at the destroyed city. The sign’s caption read, "You’re early – come back in a week." As Bush attended a memorial event Friday at New Orleans’ Warren Easton Charter High School, protesters outside chanted, "He let New Orleans drown." Inside the school, footage showed Bush dancing to a marching band.
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