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Daniel Llorente, a Cuban pro-democracy dissident forcibly expelled to Guyana for “crimes” like waving an American flag, told Breitbart News he fears for his life in Guyana but has no way of leaving.

Llorente neither chose to immigrate to Guyana nor did he flee. He was forced at gunpoint to buy a one-way plane ticket and put on a flight by Cuban state security agents. Guyanese officials never processed him at customs as foreigners properly are. He is neither a refugee nor an immigrant. He does not legally exist in Guyana.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office certified Llorente as a verified asylum seeker, offering him a veneer of legality and preventing Guyana from deporting him to Cuba. His certification does not offer stable migrant status or allow him to work in the country, however, making a normal life there impossible.

“It was never my intention to leave the country [Cuba],” he told Breitbart News in conversation Tuesday. “My intention since they imprisoned me unjustly was to wage a peaceful [campaign] directly against the dictatorship.”

“They gave me two options: leave the country peacefully, or go to jail,” he recalled.

Llorente disappeared for days before finally resurfacing in Guyana, as Breitbart News revealed in May 2019. Since then, he has been able to make ends meet with help from the United Nations and odd jobs offered by a Guyanese friend, but his U.N. help expires in May and the Guyanese government has done nothing to offer him any reasonable legal status — either expelling him or letting him work.

Llorente said that he has struggled to seek aid or find work in Guyana in part because Cuban government agents have slandered him to aid organizations and potential employers.

“They put in my dossier that I was the worst, so any organization that tries to help me, when they look at my dossier, they take me for a criminal,” Llorente said.

Llorente expressed fear for his life. He noted that he had recently been the victim of a robbery but managed to run away before being hurt.

“The situation in this country is critical, strangers have no safety, on February 20, they killed a Cuban and nothing happened,” Llorente noted. Otredis Duarte González, a 34-year-old Cuban national, was shot to death that day, allegedly by a gang of armed men on motorcycles. “This is not a safe country for me.”

“If their [the Castro regime’s] strategy at any moment becomes to eliminate me – and I am sure that this is the case because I expect anything from them – they know that this is a country that, if I can’t get out of there, I’ll have to go through the [U.S. southern] border and that is also a place where they can disappear me,” Llorente said. “I can’t give them the chance.”

In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Gutérres shared with Breitbart News, Llorente is now asking the agency for help in finding a way to exist legally, and permanently, somewhere on earth. His letter, reproduced below, asks only for “a clear solution to my situation.”

“An official at the U.N. told me on February 20 that they have no solution to my case,” Llorente lamented to Breitbart News.

Llorente would like to come to America as he has long adored the country, he said, but he refuses to do so illegally. At the U.S. embassy in Georgetown, he says he was told that embassies may no longer process asylum applications. Llorente has not yet attempted to file for refugee status, which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) states can be applied for “only from outside of the United States.”

He also attempted to reach out to Mexican officials for a humanitarian visa, but the embassy would not see him on two occasions, he said.

He repeated his adoration for the United States to Breitbart News, however, sharing photos of himself in Georgetown, Guyana, waving his American flag. He has also affixed images of President Donald Trump on some of his clothing and his bicycle.

“Even I sometimes surprise myself seeing how much I really love the U.S.,” he told Breitbart News, adding of Trump, “I feel a great respect and admiration for him because I see his desire to do good, and he is taking serious measures to control security in his country and bring an end to dictatorships in [Latin] America. I am convinced God lifted Donald Trump up as president to bring order to the world.”

Llorente’s Christian faith is inextricably tied to his admiration of the United States and disdain for communism. Speaking to Breitbart News upon his arrival to Georgetown last year, Llorente said Cuban government agents allowed him to bring only one bookbag with him, which he used to carry a Bible, a copy of the U.S. Constitution, and a book on American history. He wore only the clothes on his back.

Llorente spent nine years in prison in Cuba on false charges of “obstruction of justice” for displaying an anti-communist poster in 2002. Upon leaving prison, he took to independent activism and branded himself “the man with the flag,” waving an American flag publicly to defy the communist regime.

Llorente reached international prominence in 2007 when he interrupted that year’s May Day parade, a celebration of Marxism on May 1, by running ahead of the scheduled May Day parade waving an American flag. Cuban state security agents beat him on camera and the Castro regime forced him into a mental institution where he says he was drugged and tortured.

Cuban officials insisted he required mental health care for “believing in God.”

Bowing to international pressure, the Cuban regime freed him from the mental institution, regularly detaining him to keep him from interrupting prominent communist events. In May 2019, authorities detained both him and his son Eliezer to prevent them from staging another protest at the annual May Day protest.

Then suddenly, abruptly, Cuban state security agents forced him to buy a one-way plane ticket to Guyana. If he did not obey, Llorente said, he was told they would “disappear” him, suggesting lifetime imprisonment or death.

Llorente’s case is not unique — under pressure from international human rights organizations, the Castro regime is opting for dumping problematic dissidents in third party countries where Cubans do not need visas to travel; Guyana appears to be a particularly popular destination. The NGO Cuban Prisoners Defenders, which fights for the rights of Cuban dissidents, published a study in June 2019 revealing that forced exile cases “occur at the scale of hundreds annually, and that these have affected thousands of human rights activists, independent journalists, dissident artists, religious leaders, and other organized pacific groups. The number of those not belonging to any group, and those who no one has heard news of, could [increase] the cases to many times the number deduced by this study.”

Llorente does not belong to any organized Cuban dissident group.

Below, the letter Llorente has written to U.N. Secretary-General Guterres:

My name is Daniel Llorente Miranda, minister and ambassador of Jesus Christ.

At the 74th United Nations General Assembly, President Nayib Bukele [of El Salvador], during his first remarks to such an important event, declared publically the following: “The United Nations has strong economic resources to solve the greatest problems in the world, but the format is obsolete.”

It is worth noting that the dictatorship in Cuba has dragged on for 60 years. It is not necessary to repeat what is going on daily in Cuba; and the U.N. itself, the organization that you preside over, has been offering moral and financial support all these years and continues to do so through NGOs that only serve to help the Castro dictatorial mafia. I don’t expect to be the one to change things.

On February 20, 2020, they killed a Cuban on his way to work and nothing happened. Guyana is not a safe country for foreigners. I had, just that day, mentioned to the officer helping me at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office my fear of continuing to live in Guyana. They have already tried to rob me and, thank God, I ran and they could not catch me. I can say categorically that I live without calm and unhappy in this country.

For that reason, referring to the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of your organization, which you vowed to respect and obey, I request as per this universal law a clear solution to my situation as per Articles 2 and 9 and the right to travel freely and choose the territory of a State, as per articles 13 and 14.

I hope for a solution to my case, with confidence in your good will of never giving up ever and the commitment to what you said in your message on United Nations Day: “to not leave anyone behind, and to defend the dignity of all and for the good of all as United Nations.”

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

Actress and Hollywood director Elizabeth Banks led a pro-abortion rally outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, telling supporters that a woman’s right to terminating a pregnancy is “liberty itself.”

The rally, which also featured Democratic politicians including Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), took place as justices heard oral arguments for June Medical Services v. Russo, a case relating to the future of abortion services in Louisiana.

“Today we are taking the opportunity to present reproductive freedom, including abortion, for exactly what it is: no less than liberty itself,” said Banks, who also serves as the Chair of the Center for Reproductive Rights Creative Council.

“Abortion care cannot be just a privilege reserved for those in the right state, the right economic class, it must be a right,” the Charlie’s Angels director continued. “Rural people have abortions. People of faith have abortions. Anti-choice people have abortions. And as my friend and as my friend lindy west likes to say, we are fighting for them too.”

Banks was also joined on stage by Freaks and Geeks actress Busy Phillips, who pledged to never stop telling the world about her abortions.

“Thousands and thousands of women shared their own experiences,” Phillips said. “The whys do not matter. What matters is that we are loud and heard. I will not be shamed into being quiet. We will not be shamed into being quiet again. I will never stop talking about my abortions.”

“I had an abortion when I was fifteen years old, and I’m telling you this because I’m genuinely really scared for women and girls all over this country,” she admitted at one point.

“Thousands and thousands of women shared their own experiences. The whys do not matter. What matters is that we are loud and heard. I will not be shamed into being quiet. We will not be shamed into being quiet again. I will never stop talking about my abortions.” – @BusyPhilipps pic.twitter.com/jLB8B9pvyY

— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) March 4, 2020

It was at this rally that Sen. Schumer threatened Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, should they vote against abortion.

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh,” Schumer warned. “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Chief Justice John Roberts condemned Schumer’s comments, accusing him of “dangerous” rhetoric. “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” Roberts said in a statement.

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.

Pro-life and pro-abortion activists rallied on the steps of the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday as lawyers inside tried to convince justices to support a Louisiana law to protect women by requiring abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges.

A lawyer with the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights tried to persuade justices its 2016 ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt already settled the law that such requirements place an unfair burden on women seeking abortions because doctors who can’t meet the public safety standard will force clinic closures.

Following 60 minutes of oral arguments in June Medical Services v. Russo, the media is speculating on whether the justices — including Trump-nominated Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — would conclude after reexamining the 2016 decision and that could be the first step in reexamining another Supreme Court decision: 1973’s Roe v. Wade that made abortion on demand the law of the land.

“Justice Elena Kagan, reflecting the view of her liberal colleagues, noted that a clinic in Shreveport reported transferring just four patients to a hospital out of roughly 70,000 it has treated over 23 years,” the Associated Press reported. 

“I don’t know a medical procedure where it’s lower than that,” Kagan said.

“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg homed in on the nature of the procedure itself to suggest that hospital admissions for abortion patients are rarely necessary,” law360.com reported. “First trimester abortions, she said, are one of the safest medical procedures, even compared to childbirth.”

On the other hand, Elizabeth Murrill, solicitor general of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told the court one clinic in her state hired a radiologist and an ophthalmologist to perform surgical abortions and that widespread abuses have been documented.

But if it is unclear whether a majority of justices will stand up for protecting the health of women or allow the abortion industry to continue to profit at women’s expense, leaders of the pro-life movement are optimistic about the outcome in a case they say has nothing to do with overturning Roe and everything to do with protecting women and states rights.

“Based on what I heard in oral arguments, I’m optimistic the court will affirm the rights of states to provide oversight and regulation of abortion clinics, treating then like every other outpatient surgery center,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council said in a statement. “For too long abortionists have flouted the law and derided health standards for women seeking abortion. Perkins, who authored bills to regulate abortion when he was a legislator in Louisiana, explained what a victory in this case would mean.

“Despite the left’s hysterical fear-mongering, the case before the court today has nothing to do with Roe,” Perkins said. “This case is about whether the state has the right to ensure abortionists who take women’s money also provide for their safety.”

Perkins added that he does hope Roe v. Wade, a decision that had led to the slaughter of multiple millions of unborn children, is overturned.

FRC submitted an amicus brief in the case.

“The law at issue in June Medical Services v. Russo seeks to ensure that women get the competent and quality care that they deserve,” Jeanne Mancini, president of March or Life said in a statement. “That hasn’t been the case for years in Louisiana where women have been subject to dangerous, substandard care at abortion businesses with long, documented histories of serious health and safety violations.”

“The protection of women and girls should always be prioritized over the abortion industry’s profits,” Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of government affairs for the Susan B. Anthony List.

Susan B. Anthony List also submitted an amicus brief in the case.

“The Supreme Court has let abortionists and their clinics dictate the standards of care and safety for vulnerable women seeking abortions for far too long,” Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, legal advisor for the Catholic Association Foundation, said in a statement, “Louisiana put women’s health and safety first when passing a simple admitting privileges law in response to a horrific pattern of negligence and injury.”

“Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court will tackle laws created by conservative states to ensure that women who choose to abort their unborn babies will have the safest experience possible,” Stacy Washington, co-chairman of Project 21 said in a statement. “With Planned Parenthood clinics across the country – like one near me in St. Louis that has had over 80 ambulance calls over the past ten years – it is clear that abortion isn’t always safe.”

“For years, proponents of abortion have argued that legalized abortion is about women’s health and ensuring they have access to safe medical procedures,” Project 21 member Donna Jackson said in a statement. “Their opposition to this legislation and willingness to put the lives of poor and often minority women at risk undercuts their argument that the health and safety of women is their primary objective.”

Some of the justices did not ask questions during oral arguments.

A decision on Louisiana’s Act 620, the law that led to June Medical Services v. Russo, is expected this summer.

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter

 

The majority of Super Tuesday states, where 2020 Democrats presidential primary candidates are vying for delegates, have had their electorates rapidly changed by mass immigration to the United States over a relatively short period of time.

Today, Democrat primary voters are heading to the polls to cast their ballots for any of the remaining presidential primary candidates, which include former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).

The electorates of Super Tuesday states — including California, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Colorado, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, Maine, and Vermont — have quickly changed due to the nation’s importation of about 1.2 million legal immigrants every year.

Those legal immigrants secure green cards and can, within five years, apply to become naturalized citizens, which gives them local, state, and federal voting rights so long as they are 18 or older. Legal immigrants have nearly doubled their eligible voting population since 2000, with now more than 23 million foreign-born voters eligible to vote.

In the next 20 years, the nation’s legal immigration system, if unchanged, is expected to add about 15 million new foreign-born voters to the American electorate. Roughly seven to eight million of those foreign-born voters will have arrived through the process known as “chain migration,” whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S.

California

California, the state most changed by legal immigration, has an electorate wherein one-in-five eligible voters are foreign-born — the highest foreign-born voting population in the country. In total, about 5.5 million foreign-born voters are eligible to vote in California, making up 21 percent of the total state electorate.

Across California, the foreign-born population has grown by 4.2 million residents since 1990, with close to 11 million foreign-born residents now residing in the state. Today, foreign-born residents in California — primarily from Mexico, Central America, and China — account for almost 27 percent of the state’s population.

Nearly 50 percent of California’s foreign-born residents are Latino or Hispanic, a demographic group that has helped Democrats sweep elections, even in former staunchly-Republican districts like Orange County, California. Another 34.4 percent of California’s foreign-born residents are Asian.

In Orange County, as the Los Angeles Times reported, registered Democrats now outnumber registered Republicans due to “changing demographics” driven almost exclusively by legal immigration.

Texas

Over the last 30 years, Texas’s foreign-born population has more than tripled, which in turn has caused an increase in the state’s overall foreign-born voting population. Today, there are nearly two million eligible foreign-born voters in Texas.

In 1990, the foreign-born population in Texas accounted for only about nine percent of the state’s total population. Fast-forward to today and foreign-born residents account for more than 17 percent of the total Texas population.

About 66 percent of these foreign-born residents are Latino or Hispanic and 81.5 percent of them are between the ages of 18 to 64.

Virginia and Massachusetts

Virginia’s foreign-born voting population has ballooned to about 550,000, helping state Democrats sweep gubernatorial, state legislator, and local elections in recent years. The New York Times called Virginia’s booming foreign-born population, thanks to legal immigration, a “tidal wave” that has secured electoral dominance for Democrats.

In 1990, Virginia’s foreign-born population made up only five percent of the state’s population. Today, the foreign-born population accounts for 12.5 percent with more than a million foreign-born residents.

More than 91,000 Indian nationals have arrived in Virginia over the last three decades, the largest group of nationals from any one country. This migration has been largely aided by the federal H-1B visa program that brings mostly Indian nationals to the U.S. to fill professional jobs that would have otherwise gone to white-collar Americans.

Massachusetts has experienced similar trends in mass legal immigration. Since 1990, nearly 600,000 foreign nationals have resettled in the deep blue state. This represents a more than 101 percent increase in Massachusetts’ foreign-born population.

The increase means that about 619,000 of those foreign-born residents are eligible voters and can further help secure election victories for Democrats.

North Carolina, Colorado, and Minnesota

In North Carolina, there are now about 307,000 foreign-born voters, which has coincided with the state’s rising foreign-born population. Consistently, North Carolina has tended to deliver small margins of victories to presidential candidates. In 2016, Donald Trump won the state by less than a 200,000-vote margin against failed Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton.

Three decades ago, foreign-born residents accounted for less than two percent of North Carolina’s total population. At that time, only about 115,000 foreign-born residents lived in the state. Today, the foreign-born population is nearing one million, making up more than eight percent of the population.

Almost half of these newly arrived foreign-born residents to North Carolina are Latino or Hispanic and are arriving from South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. About 320,000 foreign-born residents in North Carolina are naturalized citizens and are eligible to vote so long as they are 18 or older.

Colorado and Minnesota have similarly experienced surging levels of legal immigration to their states over the last three decades, though their migrations are arriving from different regions of the world.

In Colorado, the foreign-born population has increased by more than 286 percent since 1990. The state’s foreign-born population has surpassed more than 550,000 as of 2017 estimates. More than 245,000 of those new arrivals have come from Central America and, more specifically, 225,000 have come from Mexico.

Colorado has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004. Today, about 235,000 of Colorado’s foreign-born population are naturalized citizens and can vote so long as they are 18 or older.

In Minnesota, where nearly 20,000 refugees have been resettled since 2009 in the Minneapolis metro area, the foreign-born population has grown by more than 330 percent since 1990. Unlike Colorado, the majority of new arrivals to Minnesota are coming from Africa and Asia.

For example, close to 30,000 have arrived in Minnesota from India in the last three decades, as well as nearly 90,000 from Eastern Africa. Minnesota is home to about 255,000 naturalized citizens who can vote once they turn 18.

Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma

Even smaller, southern states on Super Tuesday have been relatively impacted in a large way by the nation’s level of legal immigration since the 1990s.

Tennessee, for instance, has been inundated with legal immigration since 1990. The state’s foreign-born population once stood at less than 60,000. Today, it has been hiked up to nearly 350,000 — an almost 500 percent increase in the foreign-born population.

More than 40 percent of Tennessee’s new arrivals over the last three decades are Latino or Hispanic. About 130,000 foreign-born residents in Tennessee are naturalized citizens and can become eligible to vote.

Arkansas has taken a huge flow of legal immigration as well. Since 1990, Arkansas’ foreign-born population has grown by more than 460 percent, a high level for a state with just about three million residents total.

Nearly 60 percent of these new arrivals are Latino or Hispanic and the majority are arriving from South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Mexico, alone, has sent almost 60,000 nationals to Arkansas. Like Tennessee, Arkansas has a relatively low naturalization rate with only about 45,000 foreign-born residents being naturalized citizens who can become eligible to vote.

Alabama and Oklahoma have each seen their foreign-born populations increase by about 288 percent since 1990. Both states have seen surges in their Latino and Hispanic populations with about 47 to 56 percent of their new arrivals arriving from Latin America.

The two states have a combined naturalized citizen population of about 150,000, delivering more voters to be swayed for Democrats in the 2020 election.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 

A report published Sunday by an Australian think tank revealed that as many as 83 internationally known brands – including Nike, BMW, Apple, Sony, Google, Lacoste, and Nintendo – have active ties to factories where evidence suggests the Communist Party has shipped Uyghur Muslims to engage in forced labor.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a non-partisan think tank, revealed in its study that it had significant evidence of the Chinese communist regime shipping ethnic Uyghurs out of their native Xinjiang, or East Turkestan, to factories nationwide, where they endured long hours, barely received pay, and did not appear to be able to move freely.

For the past two years, China has built up dozens of concentration camps in Xinjiang, its largest and westernmost province, where between 1 million to 3 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim ethnic minorities were forced to live, enduring indoctrination, torture, rape, and murder. In December, the Chinese government – which always referred to the concentration camps as “vocational training centers” – announced that the concentration camp victims had “graduated” from “vocational training” and left the camps.

ASPI concludes that the “graduates” were shipped to factories nationwide against their will to endure arduous labor manufacturing products for software companies, car parts, shoes, and other items. When their work shifts concluded, the study found evidence that the workers were then forced to endure the same sort of indoctrination they found at the Xinjiang camps – learning Mandarin (a language not native to Xinijang), memorizing Communist Party songs, and idolatry of dictator Xi Jinping.

“The Chinese government has facilitated the mass transfer of Uyghur and other ethnic minority citizens from the far west region of Xinjiang to factories across the country,” ASPI revealed. “Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.”

The report specifically identified 27 factories outside of Xinjiang that publicly identify as building goods or parts of goods for the companies mentioned, and are thus part of the corporations’ supply chains. Most of those companies – with the notable exception of companies the U.S. has banned from business there, like Huawei – operate in the United States, meaning American consumers have access to the products in part made by Uyghur slaves.

“Between 2017 and 2019, we estimate that at least 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and assigned to factories through labour transfer programs under a central government policy known as ‘Xinjiang Aid,’” the report found. Under “Xinjiang Aid,” the Chinese Communist Party encouraged these companies to “hire” Uyghur slaves instead of locals. Advertisements online using racist imagery of cartoons wearing traditional Uyghur clothing promised “qualified, secure, and reliable” government “workers” for willing factories.

ASPI estimated that the government forced at least 80,000 Uyghurs out of Xinjiang to endure factory labor elsewhere in the country, warning that the number “is conservative and the actual figure is likely to be far higher.”

The think tank shared individual examples of factories that use Uyghur slave labor, among them a factory making Nike sportswear:

In the first case study, a factory in eastern China that manufactures shoes for US company Nike is equipped with watchtowers, barbed-wire fences and police guard boxes. The Uyghur workers, unlike their Han counterparts, are reportedly unable to go home for holidays … In the second case study of another eastern province factory claiming to supply sportswear multinationals Adidas and Fila, evidence suggests that Uyghur workers were transferred directly from one of Xinjiang’s ‘re-education camps’ … In the third case study, we identify several Chinese factories making components for Apple or their suppliers using Uyghur labour. Political indoctrination is a key part of their job assignments.

ASPI concluded that a minority of the affected companies had said they would cut ties to the factories in question, among them the apparel company Abercrombie & Fitch. Others said they would investigate the status of the factories internally, and many did not respond to the findings at all.

The anecdote shared in the report on Apple reveals that CEO Tim Cook applauded a company in a public press release that evidence indicates uses Uyghur slave labor.

In December 2017, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook visited one of the company’s contractors—O-Film Technology Co. Ltd (欧菲光科技股份有限公司)111 — and posted a picture of himself at the company’s Guangzhou factory on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.112 O-Film manufactured113 the ‘selfie cameras’ for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X. The company also claims on its website to manufacture camera modules and touchscreen components for a number of other well-known companies including Huawei, Lenovo and Samsung

[…]

According to a now deleted press release, Cook praised the company for its ‘humane approach towards employees’ during his visit to O-Film, asserting that workers seemed ‘able to gain growth at the company, and live happily.’

As it has with all reports of the enslavement of Xinjiang residents in concentration camps or forced labor factories, the Communist Party vehemently denied the findings of the report.

“This type of report is full of lies. The aid program is a beneficial scheme that helps Uygur people to earn income and learn new skills,” a Communist Party official in Xinjiang told the Global Times, one of China’s state-run propaganda outlets, in an article published Monday. “Xinjiang workers are recruited in a formal and legal way, some through local personnel departments, and others via human resource agencies. They [the workers] are all voluntary.”

Another semi-anonymous worker at the company running the Nike supplier factory implicated in the report claimed it was “definitely slander,” according to the Times.

The ASPI report is not the first to tie companies selling products in America to slave labor by Uyghurs in China. In October, expert witnesses testified to Congress that ample evidence existed that the store Costco was selling baby clothes made by a company operating in Uyghur concentration camps. The Associated Press revealed in late 2018 that Xinjiang made items were making their way through the convoluted Chinese supply chain to America.

China is engaging in a genocide campaign against Uyghurs and other ethnic minority Muslims in Xinjiang. The concentration camps are largely designed to break up the Uyghur family, forcing the relatives of many of the men in the camps to endure an official Communist Party Han Chinese person designated to live in their homes and ensure they do not practice Islam or speak ill of Xi Jinping or the Party. Survivors of the camps say rape, abortion, electroshock torture, forced sterilization, and live organ harvesting occur at the hands of the state.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

Black Lives Matter activists shut down a rally Sunday for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in her home state of Minnesota over her prosecution of a black man some believe was wrongly convicted.

The protesters took the stage and refused to leave. After negotiations with the Black Lives Matter demonstrators failed, the Klobuchar campaign was forced to cancel the rally, losing a valuable opportunity before Super Tuesday.

The New York Times reported (original links):

The rally, which was supposed to be a home state show of force two days before Super Tuesday, was instead canceled 40 minutes after its scheduled start time. The Klobuchar campaign said in a statement it was because the protesters backed out on an agreement to eventually cede the stage.

…

The protesters were referring to Myon Burrell, a black man convicted of murder as a teenager while Ms. Klobuchar was the Hennepin County attorney. Recent news reports have raised questions about the case, including numerous reported flaws with the prosecution, and whether Mr. Burrell was wrongly convicted.

The Hill added:

Klobuchar has faced calls to suspend her campaign from Black Lives Matter and NAACP activists over her role in the criminal prosecution of Myon Burrell, an African American man who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison while still a teenager. Klobuchar was the lead attorney in the county at the time of his initial trial, and she later denied a request for him to attend his mother’s funeral after he was imprisoned.

Minnesota is one of more than a dozen states that will vote Tuesday in the nation’s largest presidential primary day. Klobuchar is trying to hold her home turf against the surging Democratic frontrunner, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Monday to keep the doors open for migrants heading for Europe, promising he will not hinder anyone heading for the border with Greece.

He warned Europe that it will have prepare to shoulder its part of the migrant “burden.”

“After we opened the doors, there were multiple calls saying ‘close the doors’,” he said. “I told them ‘it’s done. It’s finished. The doors are now open. Now, you will have to take your share of the burden’.”

Some 13,000 migrants, including Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis, massed at Turkey’s border with Greece over the weekend after Erdogan announced Turkey would no longer prevent them from heading towards Europe’s hearland.

The move follows years of threats made by Erdogan to punish Europe for not furnishing his Islamist government with money and political support by opening Turkey’s borders — behind which are 3.5 million or more migrants waiting to travel to head west.

As Breitbart London reported, tensions at the border with Turkey began rising as thousands of migrants arrived at the frontier on unmarked buses and state-owned railways.

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Sunday evening that all asylum applications are being suspended in response to the crisis, and “the level of deterrence at our borders [has been increased to the maximum.”

E.U. foreign ministers are due to meet this week at the request of Greece to discuss the situation, amid fears of a repeat of the refugee influx that poisoned European politics in 2015.

Athens is to boost patrols of its land and sea borders in the north-east and was also suspending consideration of asylum applications by those who entered the country illegally, said Greek government spokesman, Stelios Petsas.

AFP contributed to this story

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

LOS ANGELES, California — The legendary hip hop group Public Enemy joined Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) onstage at the Los Angeles Convention Center for a large rally on Sunday evening ahead of Super Tuesday.

Throwing F-bombs, raising their fists, and delivering their revolutionary message in songs like “Fight the Power,” the group rallied a capacity crowd of thousands ahead of Tuesday’s crucial vote in California and other states.

It was an unusual look for an American presidential campaign, especially for the frontrunner of one of the two major parties — but also a sign that Sanders intends to run as the unabashed leader of a “political revolution.”

Outside the venue, thousands had lined up to enter, with demonstrators on bullhorns exhorting them to vote and “Bern Donald Trump.” One man waved a flag that appropriated President Donald Trump’s iconic design.

Another enthusiastic group of Sanders supporters waved signs and chanted, “Fuck Donald Trump!”

One man, holding a sign that read “Million to Milwaukee,” insisted that Sanders supporters protest the potential use of superdelegates to deny him the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in July. Superdelegates would only vote if no candidate managed to muster a majority of delegates on the first ballot.

He greeted news that former South Bend, Indiana, Myor Pete Buttigieg had dropped out of the race that evening by offering Breitbart News a high-five.

Several attendees sported the crosshairs logo of Public Enemy, even though Sanders had fundraised in 2011 by criticizing former Gov. Sarah Palin’s use of crosshairs in a campaign advertisement, accusing her of inciting mass shootings.

The group feuded publicly over whether to support Sanders, with a lawyer for Flavor Flav sending group leader Chuck D a “cease-and-desist” letter before the rally. Chuck D performed anyway, and fired Flav after 37 years.

Public Enemy has fired Flavor Flav, one of hip-hop’s most memorable hypemen, after 37 years https://t.co/R9XRyHEgFN

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) March 2, 2020

Inside the rally, space filled up quickly, and fire marshals temporarily closed the doors, stranding members of the media outside the hall, along with Sanders supporters. Press representatives of the campaign told Breitbart News that they had cut off RSVPs for the event at 20,000.

Several speakers warmed up the crowd, including Hollywood legend Dick van Dyke, who joked that at age 94, he was 15 years older than Sanders and didn’t see age as a problem.

Comedian Sarah Sanders also spoke, complaining that Trump supporters were attacking Sanders as a socialist. “First of all, socialism is not communism,” she explained, adding: “Bernie is a ‘democratic socialist’.”

Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, drew loud cheers when she slammed the Los Angeles Police Department. She also attacked Trump “and his crew of white supremacists,” then suggested that Democratic rivals Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg were offering “a softer, more liberal version” of that ideology.

Sanders delivered his stump speech to raucous cheers, offering his template of left-wing policies, from canceling student debt to Medicare for All. “Let’s transform this country!” he declared, as he concluded, emphatically.

Sanders currently leads the polls by a wide margin in delegate-rich California, which moved its primary up from June to Super Tuesday to play more of a role in selecting candidates for the national presidential nominations.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Violent clashes erupted on the European Union’s common external border over the weekend as Greek border guards tried to stop migrants promised they could travel to Europe by the Turkish president from entering.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who leads the Islamist government in Ankara, told migrants the border was now open several days ago — a move widely regarded as punishment for the West’s failure to back his effective annexation of northern Syria, which has embroiled him in an increasingly deadly confrontation with the Syrian government and its backers in Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah.

 

 

 

The EU, including the United Kingdom, had been funnelling the Turkish government billions of euros in order to encourage Erogan to bring the flow of migrants under a modicum of control, but he has now reneged on that deal, and they are again travelling to the frontier in their tens of thousands — many of them in unmarked buses seemingly laid on for the purpose of transporting them.

The Greek border, however, remains closed, resulting in angry confrontations between Greek personnel and migrants who believed border guards on both sides of the frontier had been stood down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Migrants have lit fires, hurled stones, and exchanged tear gas canisters with the Greek border guards, who have had to be reinforced by military personnel, in their efforts to breach the border and reach Europe.

The Greeks have for the most part held firm, although some dozens of migrants have illegally entered the country successfully, ranging down along the border in search of weak points to ford the Evros river or destroy sections of fencing with bolt cutters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has promised that “the level of deterrence at our borders [has been increased to the maximum” and taken the extraordinary step of suspending all asylum applications.

The New York Times believes this move may have be illegal under the EU rules on asylum and immigration to which Greece is subject, but Prime Minister Mitsotakis says he has activated an emergency clause in the bloc’s treaties to “to ensure full European support”.

Whether or not this will be challenged in the Greek or EU courts by NGOs or other actors which favour open borders remains to be seen.

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery

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LOS ANGELES, California — The crosshairs logo of the celebrated rap group Public Enemy were worn by several fans of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at a large rally Sunday evening ahead of Super Tuesday — though Sanders once attacked former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for using crosshairs in an advertisement targeting congressional districts.

Public Enemy group leader Chuck D has endorsed Sanders and was expected to perform Sunday evening for a capacity crowd at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

(Fellow Public Enemy member Flavor Flav sent a “cease-and-desist” letter to the Sanders campaign, claiming that Chuck D did not represent the group as a whole.)

Many of the group’s songs have a political edge. Some of their classics include “Fight the Power” (the official slogan for Sunday’s rally in L.A.) and “911 Is a Joke.”

In 2014, Chuck D explained the group’s crosshairs logo in 2014 in an interview with Rolling Stone: “The crosshairs logo symbolized the black man in America … A lot of people thought it was a state trooper because of the hat, but the hat is one of the ones that Run-DMC wore. The B-Boy stance and the silhouette was more like the black man on the target.”

As such, the logo is a protest, not an incitement to violence.

But that is not how Sanders interpreted crosshairs when they were used by Sarah Palin — with no one in the sights.

As the Washington Free Beacon noted, Sanders actually fundraised in 2011 by criticizing Palin for using crosshairs:

Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders once fundraised by blaming conservatives and then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R.) for the 2011 attack on former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D., Ariz.).

“This horrendous act of violence is not some kind of strange aberration for this area where, it appears, threats and acts of violence are part of the political climate,” Sanders wrote in a fundraising email in January 2011. “Nobody can honestly express surprise that such a tragedy finally occurred.”

Giffords was critically wounded by a gunshot wound to the head during an assassination attempt. Twenty people were shot, and six of them were killed.

“Congresswoman Giffords publicly expressed concerns when Sarah Palin, on her website, placed her district in the cross-hairs of a rifle—and identified her by name below the image—as an encouragement to Palin supporters to eliminate her from Congress,” the Vermont senator wrote.

There was never any connection established between Palin’s crosshairs and the gunman in the Tucson, Arizona, mass shooting. The shooter was mentally disturbed.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.