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    Trump Administration Pulls Back From Local Police Oversight Across U.S.

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    The Justice Department said that it would abandon efforts to overhaul local policing in Minneapolis and other cities with histories of civil rights violations.The Trump administration moved on Wednesday to scrap proposed agreements for federal oversight of police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., as part of a broader abandonment of efforts by previous administrations to overhaul local law enforcement across the United States.Justice Department officials said they planned to drop cases filed after incidents of police violence against Black people in Minneapolis and Louisville, and to close investigations into departments in Memphis; Phoenix; Oklahoma City; Trenton, N.J.; and Mount Vernon, N.Y., as well as a case against the Louisiana State Police.In those cities and states, Justice Department officials said, they were retracting Biden-era findings that police departments had violated the constitutional rights of residents and were declaring those findings to be misguided.The announcement came four days before the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died at the hands of the Minneapolis police. That act of violence, caught on video, inspired national outrage and worldwide protests against police violence targeting Black Americans.It also resulted in a withering federal report that found that the Minneapolis Police Department had routinely discriminated against Black and Native American people and had used deadly force without justification. After nearly two years of negotiations, the Justice Department and the city submitted an agreement to the court in January calling for federal oversight of the Police Department’s efforts to address the issues.That arrangement, known as a consent decree, was similar to court-approved agreements between the federal government and at least 13 other cities whose police forces have been accused of widespread civil rights abuses, including Los Angeles, Newark and Ferguson, Mo.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Is Destroying a Core American Value. The World Will Notice.

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      In the late 1980s, Joseph Nye, the Harvard political scientist who died this month, developed the concept of “soft power.” His central premise, that the United States enhances its global influence by promoting values like human rights and democracy, has guided U.S. foreign policy for decades across both Republican and Democratic administrations.Donald Trump has made clear that he fundamentally rejects this vision. As president, he has ordered a sweeping overhaul of the State Department that will cripple its capacity to promote American values abroad. At the center of this effort are drastic cuts to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor — the State Department’s core institution for advancing soft power, which I led under President Barack Obama. Unless Congress intervenes, the debasement of the bureau’s role will impair America’s ability to challenge authoritarianism, support democratic movements and provide independent analysis to inform U.S. foreign policy. The long-term result will be a United States that is weaker, less principled and increasingly sidelined as authoritarian powers like Russia and China offer their own transactional models of global engagement.The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor was created with bipartisan congressional support in 1977, a time when lawmakers sought greater influence over foreign policy in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and America’s support for authoritarian regimes in countries like Chile and South Korea. President Jimmy Carter’s religious convictions and deep commitment to human rights gave the fledgling bureau early momentum. Still, its purpose was always practical: to ensure U.S. foreign aid and trade decisions were informed by credible assessments of human rights conditions around the world. That’s why every year, the bureau prepares congressionally mandated human rights reports.In its early years, it struggled to defend its existence. Foreign governments resented being called out in its annual reports and attacked its legitimacy. Many State Department traditionalists viewed its focus on human rights as an unhelpful distraction from the realpolitik topics they were much more comfortable addressing. It also drew criticisms of hypocrisy, mostly from the left, for condemning the records of other countries in the face of unresolved human rights problems here in the United States. Others accurately pointed out that even as the State Department’s human rights reports documented serious abuses, the United States continued to provide substantial aid to governments like Ferdinand E. Marcos’s Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire, Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt and numerous military regimes across Latin America.These tensions have not disappeared. But over nearly five decades, the bureau has evolved to confront them. Governments, companies, judges and nongovernmental organizations have all come to rely on its annual country reports. It plays the lead role in preventing the United States from funding foreign security forces that violate human rights. And its policy engagement has guided the U.S. approach to international conflicts, repressive regimes and civil wars.That progress is now at risk. The Trump administration’s proposed “reforms” will hamstring my former agency’s capacity to uphold its mission in three major ways.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bangladesh Bans the Political Party of Its Ousted Former Ruler

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      Sheikh Hasina fled the country after a mass uprising against her government, but the party she led remained a factor in Bangladeshi politics.The interim government of Bangladesh on Saturday announced that it would ban all activities of the Awami League, the political party of the country’s ousted leader Sheikh Hasina, under the country’s antiterrorism act until several legal cases against the party and its leaders have concluded.The government, led by the Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, also amended a law to ensure that an entire party can be tried for certain crimes, not just individual members.Last summer, Ms. Hasina’s authoritarian government was toppled by a student protest movement. She fled to India, but the Awami League maintained a presence in Bangladesh.When Hasnat Abdullah, one of the leaders of last year’s uprising, was attacked last week, supporters of Ms. Hasina’s party were blamed. That prompted more student outrage and demands for tougher action against the Awami League.“Our ultimate goal is to see that the Awami League is banned,” Mr. Hasnat said during a protest on Saturday. “Even if I make no further announcements, don’t leave the streets until the Awami League is banned.”Hundreds of people, including students in wheelchairs or on crutches who had been injured during protests last year, joined the rally and demanded that the Awami League be banned. Other political parties, including the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Andolan, and members of Hefazat-e-Islam, a nonpolitical Islamic pressure group, also joined the demonstration.On Saturday evening, the law minister, Asif Nazrul, said the government would ban “all activities” of the Awami League under Bangladesh’s Anti-Terrorism Act “until the trials of the party and its leaders at the International Crimes Tribunal are completed.”The tribunal, despite its name, is a domestic court, and will eventually rule on accusations that Awami League members committed atrocities during the 2024 protests. The interim government says that the legal amendment was to ensure that a political party is not able to disown an individual member as a bad actor while continuing to back bad behavior.An inquiry commission formed by the interim government said in December that Ms. Hasina orchestrated mass disappearances during her 15 years in power.Separately, a United Nations fact-finding committee said in February that at least 1,400 people, including children, were killed by law enforcement and members of Ms. Hasina’s party during last year’s protests.In a Facebook post, the Awami League alluded to the unelected nature of the interim government in a comment on the amendment: “Decisions of an illegitimate government are also illegitimate themselves.”In 2024, student protests against a job reservation system grew into a huge uprising fueled by frustration and anger at Ms. Hasina’s rule. Tensions escalated after the death of a protester in mid-July, which led her administration to block the internet, impose curfews and order army, paramilitary and police forces to crack down on the protesters.Ms. Hasina fled Bangladesh on Aug. 5, narrowly escaping the thousands of protesters marching toward her residence. Three days later, Mr. Yunus took an oath as the new head of the government. More

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      Critics Call Rubio’s Overhaul Plan a Blow to U.S. Values

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      Human rights, democracy, refugees, war crimes.Those are some of the key responsibilities of a State Department office that Secretary of State Marco Rubio intends to shutter as part of a larger reorganization plan for his agency that he unveiled on Tuesday.The official goal of the office — the under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights — is to help countries “build more democratic, secure, stable, and just societies.”In a post on Substack on Tuesday, Mr. Rubio called the change a blow against rogue liberal bureaucrats, saying the office had become “a fertile environment for activists to redefine ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’ and to pursue their projects at the taxpayer expense” even when they conflict with the president’s goals.The office’s nine bureaus will be pared down and in most cases merged into other parts of the department under Mr. Rubio’s plan. Bureaus slated for elimination include those focused on conflict, global criminal justice and combating antisemitism.Two of the bureaus, including a smaller democracy and human rights bureau, will continue to exist under a new Office of the Coordinator for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs. But that office will no longer be led by an under secretary.On Tuesday, a State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, cautioned that the changes did not mean the end of values-based initiatives in U.S. foreign policy, arguing that the goal was a “nimbler” department.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Syria Violence Marked by Sectarian and Revenge Killings, War Monitor Says

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      The Syrian Network for Human Rights said armed groups and foreign fighters aligned with the government but not integrated into it were largely responsible for the sectarian violence.Armed groups and foreign fighters linked to the government but not yet integrated into it were primarily responsible for sectarian massacres in Syria’s coastal region over the past week, a war monitoring group said in a new report.The U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said on Wednesday that the U.S. would “watch the decisions made by the interim authorities” after hundreds of civilians were killed in just several days in areas dominated by the country’s Alawite religious minority. He added that Washington was concerned by “the recent deadly violence against minorities.”The ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad was an Alawite and some members of his minority community enjoyed a privileged status under his rule.The Syrian Network for Human Rights, which monitors the country’s civil war, said in a report released late on Tuesday that the violence in recent days “included extrajudicial killings, field executions, and systematic mass killings motivated by revenge and sectarianism.”The clashes erupted almost a week ago in Latakia and Tartus Provinces — the Alawite heartland of Syria — between fighters aligned with the new government and Assad loyalists. The new government is led by Islamist former rebels who fought Mr. al-Assad in a 13-year civil war.The violence was triggered when pro-Assad militants ambushed security forces last Thursday and killed more than a dozen of them. The government then poured security forces into the coastal region.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Transgender Rights Are Human Rights

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      More from our inbox:‘I Am So Sorry’Lying to ChildrenThe Education Department said it would investigate two colleges that have been caught up in disputes regarding transgender athletes.Demetrius Freeman/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Pain Is the Point of Trump’s Transgender Policy,” by Jennifer Finney Boylan (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 18):For most of my life I feared what would happen if anyone knew that I experienced a full spectrum of both feminine and masculine expressions. The shame began when I was a small child and followed me throughout much of my life. Even so I did not grow up with a fear of my government. America was a work in progress.I have seen rights gradually extended to women, racial minorities and sexual minorities, including trans and nonbinary people. However, today I find myself joining the rapidly growing ranks of innocent Americans who get up each morning fearing their own government.By targeting trans and nonbinary people, our president seeks to secure unchecked power at the expense of the vulnerable and innocent. Scapegoating minorities is a tried and true model for dictators throughout history. Here President Trump joins the likes of Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban by manufacturing a perceived threat from an innocent minority, which will eventually justify restrictions on civil rights for everyone.I have listened to his calls for a return to a time when there were only two genders. That was also a time when America freely and openly discriminated against women, people of color, Jews and others. The fact is there have never been just two genders. Many societies accepted us, and even those that tried to ban us recognized our existence in those very bans.We will not disappear again into the shadows. We will resist, those who love us will resist, and those who are decent will resist. As long as we do so, the ideal that all Americans are created equal will not fade, that this country might endure and grow once again.Mark PetersenPark City, UtahTo the Editor:Re “Trump’s Shameful Campaign Against Transgender Americans” (editorial, Feb. 16):The Trump administration’s attacks on transgender and nonbinary individuals compromise our safety and attempt to strip us of our rights and our humanity. These policies aren’t just cruel — they are also deeply un-American.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Charges Ex-Syrian Prison Official With Torture

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      The indictment was the second time in a week that the Justice Department announced that it had charged top Syrian officials with human rights abuses.A federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged a former Syrian government official on Thursday with torturing political dissidents at a notorious prison in Damascus.The former official, Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, 72, ran Adra prison, according to federal prosecutors, where he was personally involved in torturing inmates in a bid to stifle opposition to its recently deposed authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad.Prosecutors said Mr. al-Sheikh ordered prisoners to be taken to a part of the prison known as the “punishment wing,” where they were beaten while hanging from the ceiling. Guards would forcibly fold bodies in half, resulting in terrible pain and fractured spines.The indictment was the second time in a week that the Justice Department announced that it had charged top Syrian officials with human rights abuses. The moves underscore its efforts to hold to account the top reaches of the government for a brutal system of detention and torture that flourished under Mr. al-Assad.The charges against Mr. al-Sheikh on Thursday add to earlier charges in July that accused him of attempted naturalization fraud in his effort to seek U.S. citizenship, according to a criminal complaint. He was arrested attempting to fly to Beirut.The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, Martin Estrada, cast the new charges against Mr. al-Sheikh in a grim light. “The allegations in this superseding indictment of grave human rights abuses are chilling,” he said.Mr. al-Sheikh was charged with three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture.Mr. al-Sheikh immigrated to the United States in 2020 and applied for U.S. citizenship in 2023, lying on federal forms about the abuses, the authorities have said.Prosecutors said he was appointed governor of the province of Deir al-Zour by Mr. al-Assad in 2011. Mr. al-Assad’s authoritarian government crumbled over the weekend after rebels routed his forces and took control of swaths of the country.On Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed charges against two top-ranking Syrian intelligence officials, accusing them of war crimes. The pair, Jamil Hassan and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, oversaw a prison in Damascus during the Syrian civil war, prosecutors said.That indictment signaled the first time the United States had criminally charged top Syrian officials with human rights abuses used to silence dissent and spread fear through the country.Mr. Hassan was the head of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, and Mr. Mahmoud served as a brigadier general in the Air Force’s intelligence unit. Their location is unknown. More

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      Crowds Throng to Syria’s Sednaya Prison to Find Relatives and Friends

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      Crowds descended on a prison on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Monday, desperate to learn the fate of friends and relatives detained at a place that symbolized terror and death under the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.Some hailed taxis or waited for buses from the city to the prison, Sednaya, which opened over the weekend as Mr. al-Assad fell. Others packed into cars, inching through traffic. Many appeared conflicted by hope and dread amid the euphoria that has gripped Damascus since Mr. al-Assad fled to Russia.“Seizing the city is a joy — we are joyous,” said one rebel fighter, Mohammad Bakir, who sat in the back of a mud-caked car en route to the prison, his rifle tucked between his knees. He said he had not heard from his mother, brother and cousin since they disappeared in 2012 after they protested against the government and were presumably detained.“But the real victory will be when I find my family,” Mr. Bakir, 42, said above the din of car horns.Prisons were central to Mr. al-Assad’s ability to crush the civilian uprising that began in 2011 and the rebellion that followed. He set up an industrial-scale system of arbitrary arrests and torture prisons, according to reports by human rights groups.More than 130,000 people were subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention by the government, according to a report in August by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a nonprofit, which began its count when the conflict started in 2011. The network said that more than 15,000 people had died “due to torture” by government forces from 2011 to July this year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nobel Laureate: Remember Political Prisoners

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      No mission is more important than preserving the lives of those who have been jailed for their principles.This personal reflection is part of a series called Turning Points, in which writers explore what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead. You can read more by visiting the Turning Points series page.Turning Point: On Aug. 1, 24 people were released in a multicountry prisoner swap — the largest exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.I experienced a moment of happiness earlier this year when Evan Gershkovich returned to his parents and Lilia Chanysheva to her husband, when Vladimir Kara-Murza saw daylight after 11 months in solitary confinement and Ilya Yashin and Sasha Skochilenko regained their freedom. But I fear for those political prisoners who remain in Russian jails. If there are no Americans, Germans or Britons among their ranks, will anyone stand up for them?During World War II, it was necessary to open a second front to defeat fascism. In the present fight against creeping authoritarianism, democratic states so far have put all their efforts into standing up for political principles, but there is an urgent need to open a “second front” to stand up for the value of human life, centered on a call for the rights of political prisoners to be observed.Thanks to YouTube and social media, we were able to keep track of the fate of the prisoners freed earlier this year. From now on, however, we will know little about the suffering of those still behind bars because the Russian government has blocked these channels. Only the remnants of free speech still being exercised inside the country allow us to be aware of the circumstances facing those who are held in terrible conditions in Russia’s prisons.Among those who remain incarcerated is the boiler mechanic Vladimir Rumyantsev, who declared war on censorship and opened his own personal radio station in the northern Russian city of Vologda. In Siberia, Mikhail Afanasyev, the editor of the online magazine Novy Fokus, is serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence for his reporting on 11 military servicemen who refused to go to Ukraine. A court in the city of Akaban convicted him for spreading false information about the “special military operation,” as the war in Ukraine is called in Russia. The director Yevgeniya Berkovich and the playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were thrown into jail and accused of condoning terrorism after Berkovich staged Petriychuk’s play “Finist the Brave Falcon,” which tells the story of women who were persuaded to become the wives of militants in Syria.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More