csmonitor--2020-06-08--An ocean apart, similar stories: US protests hit home in South Africa

“ The power of these institutions is the same across oceans , ” says the organizer of a solidarity vigil in Cape Town last week .
“ We all live in a world where to be black and to be alive is to risk your own life.
” As in the United States , law enforcement here are rarely prosecuted for deaths or other acts of violence .
There were more than 42,000 criminal complaints against the police here between 2012 and 2019 , according to the country ’ s police watchdog .
But just 531 resulted in successful criminal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South African investigative journalism outlet Viewfinder .
A generation after the end of apartheid , violent policing of poor black South Africans remains common .
The killing of Mr. Floyd has put renewed attention , for example , on the April death of Collins Khosa , whose family says he was beaten and choked by soldiers enforcing the country ’ s strict lockdown .
U.S. protests over the killing of George Floyd and other black Americans , like EMT Breonna Taylor , have inspired a cascading global reaction .
And here in South @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policing used to maintain white supremacy , there has been an outpouring of solidarity – but also , sharp calls to look inward .
His family says they watched as he was held down and choked inside his own house here , slammed against a concrete wall and beaten with fists and the butt of a gun .
Collins Khosa ’ s partner Nomsa Montsha screamed for the officers to stop , but they beat her too .
Three hours later , as he lay on their bed holding her hand , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ postmortem would later clinically label a “ blunt force head injury.
” It was a similar scene that has caused hundreds of American cities and towns to erupt in anguish and rage over the past week .
Much like in the killing of George Floyd , Mr. Khosa , who died on April 10 , was also a black man alleged to have committed a minor crime .
Like in the United States , his attackers were law enforcement .
U.S. protests over the killing of Mr. Floyd and other black Americans , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cascading global reaction .
And it feels particularly familiar here in South Africa , where , as in the U.S. , policing was historically used to maintain white supremacy .
There has been both an outpouring of solidarity , and sharp calls to turn inward , to consider why violent policing of poor black South Africans remains common a generation after the end of apartheid .
“ The experience of police brutality is something extremely common to the black South African experience , ” says Solomzi Henry Moleketi , who stood outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a group of friends holding signs that read “ Africans Stand With Black Lives Matter.
” “ When we talk about the killing of George Floyd and Collins Khosa , we ’ re speaking of a common struggle.
” The video of Mr. Floyd dying under the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin , he added , “ ripped my soul.
” In many ways , Mr. Floyd and Mr. Khosa came from similar worlds : societies with deeply seated racism , where being black meant being far more prone to die young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in poverty .
Mr. Floyd died in a commercial borderland between many of Minneapolis ’ more affluent , mostly white neighborhoods and its poorer mostly black ones .
Mr. Khosa , meanwhile , was killed in his home in Alexandra , a crowded , mostly poor black neighborhood in Johannesburg that brushes up against Sandton , the skyscraper suburb known as “ Africa ’ s richest square mile.
” Both men lived , and died , with their country ’ s gaping inequalities on full display .
Both , too , came of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black people was part of the fabric of society .
Mr. Floyd grew up in the 1980s , when victims of police violence had to prove that force was not applied in a “ good faith effort ” to stop a crime .
( Today , courts require an officer ’ s use of force to be “ objectively reasonable ” in the situation he or she is in . )
Mr. Khosa also grew up in the ‘ 80s , the dying years of apartheid , when police and soldiers patrolled black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activists were killed by police , and thousands , including many children and peaceful protesters , were killed by security forces .
But the years that followed , as apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela ’ s South Africa came to be seen as the global poster child for racial reconciliation , the country ’ s police force began to change too .
The percentage of white cops fell , and top leadership flipped from white to black .
Yet the government wrestled with how to transform a police service designed to maintain white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that served its entire population .
For the first decade of democracy , the police worked to “ demilitarize , ” says Kelly Gillespie , a South African anthropologist focused on criminal justice .
But as violent crime continued to plague the country , more aggressive tactics returned .
Some black South Africans welcomed the hard-line stance , hoping it would reduce the violent crime that stalked many neighborhoods .
But it was no coincidence that the targets of this new wave of police brutality were largely the same they had been under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the communities most aggressively targeted were poor areas , which are still almost exclusively black .
“ Since apartheid , there ’ s been a continuity in the violence experienced by poor black people at the hands of the police , ” she says .
“ Police brutality is an ongoing story.
” And like in the United States , police officers in South Africa are rarely prosecuted for deaths or other acts of violence .
There were more than 42,000 criminal complaints against the police here between 2012 and 2019 , according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country ’ s police watchdog , including thousands of deaths , rapes , and assault cases .
But just 531 resulted in successful criminal convictions , according to an analysis by South African investigative journalism outlet Viewfinder .
For many black South Africans , then , what happened to George Floyd and other black Americans felt like an extension of their own experience .
“ The power of these institutions is the same across oceans , ” says the organizer of a solidarity vigil for Black Lives Matter in Cape Town last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because she is a refugee who worries her activism could threaten her legal status .
“ We all live in a world where to be black and to be alive is to risk your own life.
” According to court filings by Mr. Khosa ’ s family , the 40-year-old father was at home with his family the Friday before Easter when soldiers enforcing South Africa ’ s coronavirus lockdown entered his property , alleging that he had violated the lockdown ’ s rules by drinking a beer in his yard .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but not drinking at home . )
Ms. Montsha and other witnesses have said the soldiers poured beer over his head before choking and beating him .
When the soldiers had gone , Mr. Khosa became increasingly incoherent , vomiting and struggling to speak , according to court papers filed by the family .
He lay down , and died three hours later , as they waited for paramedics to arrive .
The South African National Defense Force has denied allegations that soldiers ’ actions led to Mr. Khosa ’ s death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investigation cleared the soldiers who allegedly attacked him of responsibility for his death , writing that the “ injuries on the body of Mr. Khosa can not be linked with the cause of death , ” and blaming him for “ undermining ” female soldiers .
A police investigation is still underway .
“ No one will fill that space , ” Ms. Montsha said of Mr. Khosa , speaking to local TV news station eNCA last month .
For his family , he was “ the man with the biggest heart in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the family ’ s lawyer .
( The Khosa family , via Mr. Steyl , declined to comment for this story . )
He stretched his own small paycheck to pay for the education expenses of kids in his neighborhood , and had instructed his family to take the lockdown seriously “ to keep everyone safe , ” Mr. Steyl says .
His death quickly became a symbol for the brutal way South African police officers and soldiers have enforced the country ’ s coronavirus lockdown .
By late May , some 230,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At least 11 South Africans were allegedly killed by police or soldiers in the same period , and another , sex worker Elma Robyn Motsumi , died in police custody , allegedly by suicide , under murky circumstances .
To date , no soldier or police officer has been prosecuted .
But public outrage is growing , in part because heavy-handed lockdown policing has been directed – albeit in a far less deadly way – at the rich as well as the poor , Dr. Gillespie says .
In mid-May , Mr. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ruling that ordered , among other things , the creation of a simple way for citizens to report allegations of brutality , and of a strict code of conduct for lockdown policing .
But the killing of George Floyd on May 25 , and the protests that rippled out from it , further amplified the urgency of finding justice for those killed in South Africa too , says Tumi Moloto .
The recent South African graduate of Mt .
Holyoke College in Massachusetts , who uses the pronoun they , says they related @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they have experienced the realities of being policed as a black person in both countries .
“ We can and we should be outraged for both the United States and for ourselves , ” they say .
“ It ’ s not either/or .
We can hold both those things in our conscience.
” For many , though , justice still feels a long way off .
Mr. Steyl says the Khosa family will challenge the defense forces ’ findings in court .
Activists , meanwhile , say they hope they can sustain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mr. Khosa – as well as the other killings and a series of violent evictions during lockdown .
On Monday , demonstrators led by the Economic Freedom Fighters , a leftist opposition party in South Africa , marched to the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg , where they sang a traditional anti-apartheid folk song called “ Senzeni Na ?
” or “ What Have I Done ?
” What have we done ?
Our sin is that we are black ?
Our sin is the truth .
They are killing us .

“The power of these institutions is the same across oceans,” says the organizer of a solidarity vigil in Cape Town last week. “We all live in a world where to be black and to be alive is to risk your own life.”
As in the United States, law enforcement here are rarely prosecuted for deaths or other acts of violence. There were more than 42,000 criminal complaints against the police here between 2012 and 2019, according to the country’s police watchdog. But just 531 resulted in successful criminal convictions, according to an analysis by South African investigative journalism outlet Viewfinder.
When you look at the U.S. protests, what do you see? For many South Africans, it’s a reminder of their own society’s complicated, continuing history of police violence. Both countries’ hard-won gains toward equal protection for all often seem stubbornly far off.
A generation after the end of apartheid, violent policing of poor black South Africans remains common. The killing of Mr. Floyd has put renewed attention, for example, on the April death of Collins Khosa, whose family says he was beaten and choked by soldiers enforcing the country’s strict lockdown.
U.S. protests over the killing of George Floyd and other black Americans, like EMT Breonna Taylor, have inspired a cascading global reaction. And here in South Africa, with its own history of policing used to maintain white supremacy, there has been an outpouring of solidarity – but also, sharp calls to look inward.
His family says they watched as he was held down and choked inside his own house here, slammed against a concrete wall and beaten with fists and the butt of a gun. Collins Khosa’s partner Nomsa Montsha screamed for the officers to stop, but they beat her too. Three hours later, as he lay on their bed holding her hand, she watched her husband die of what a postmortem would later clinically label a “blunt force head injury.”
It was a similar scene that has caused hundreds of American cities and towns to erupt in anguish and rage over the past week. Much like in the killing of George Floyd, Mr. Khosa, who died on April 10, was also a black man alleged to have committed a minor crime. Like in the United States, his attackers were law enforcement.
U.S. protests over the killing of Mr. Floyd and other black Americans, like EMT Breonna Taylor, have inspired a cascading global reaction. And it feels particularly familiar here in South Africa, where, as in the U.S., policing was historically used to maintain white supremacy. There has been both an outpouring of solidarity, and sharp calls to turn inward, to consider why violent policing of poor black South Africans remains common a generation after the end of apartheid.
Why We Wrote This When you look at the U.S. protests, what do you see? For many South Africans, it’s a reminder of their own society’s complicated, continuing history of police violence. Both countries’ hard-won gains toward equal protection for all often seem stubbornly far off.
“The experience of police brutality is something extremely common to the black South African experience,” says Solomzi Henry Moleketi, who stood outside the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg Thursday with a group of friends holding signs that read “Africans Stand With Black Lives Matter.” “When we talk about the killing of George Floyd and Collins Khosa, we’re speaking of a common struggle.”
The video of Mr. Floyd dying under the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin, he added, “ripped my soul.”
History’s shadow
In many ways, Mr. Floyd and Mr. Khosa came from similar worlds: societies with deeply seated racism, where being black meant being far more prone to die young, go to prison, and live in poverty. Mr. Floyd died in a commercial borderland between many of Minneapolis’ more affluent, mostly white neighborhoods and its poorer mostly black ones. Mr. Khosa, meanwhile, was killed in his home in Alexandra, a crowded, mostly poor black neighborhood in Johannesburg that brushes up against Sandton, the skyscraper suburb known as “Africa’s richest square mile.” Both men lived, and died, with their country’s gaping inequalities on full display.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters View caption Hide caption A protester demonstrates against the deaths of George Floyd, in the United States, and Collins Khosa, in South Africa, outside South Africa's Parliament in Cape Town June 3, 2020. Mr. Khosa died after a confrontation with security forces enforcing a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown.
Both, too, came of age in worlds where police violence against black people was part of the fabric of society. Mr. Floyd grew up in the 1980s, when victims of police violence had to prove that force was not applied in a “good faith effort” to stop a crime. (Today, courts require an officer’s use of force to be “objectively reasonable” in the situation he or she is in.) Mr. Khosa also grew up in the ‘80s, the dying years of apartheid, when police and soldiers patrolled black neighborhoods in armored vehicles. Dozens of activists were killed by police, and thousands, including many children and peaceful protesters, were killed by security forces.
But the years that followed, as apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela’s South Africa came to be seen as the global poster child for racial reconciliation, the country’s police force began to change too. The percentage of white cops fell, and top leadership flipped from white to black. Yet the government wrestled with how to transform a police service designed to maintain white rule, often violently, into one that served its entire population.
For the first decade of democracy, the police worked to “demilitarize,” says Kelly Gillespie, a South African anthropologist focused on criminal justice. But as violent crime continued to plague the country, more aggressive tactics returned.
Some black South Africans welcomed the hard-line stance, hoping it would reduce the violent crime that stalked many neighborhoods. But it was no coincidence that the targets of this new wave of police brutality were largely the same they had been under apartheid, Dr. Gillespie says, because the communities most aggressively targeted were poor areas, which are still almost exclusively black.
“Since apartheid, there’s been a continuity in the violence experienced by poor black people at the hands of the police,” she says. “Police brutality is an ongoing story.”
And like in the United States, police officers in South Africa are rarely prosecuted for deaths or other acts of violence. There were more than 42,000 criminal complaints against the police here between 2012 and 2019, according to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, the country’s police watchdog, including thousands of deaths, rapes, and assault cases. But just 531 resulted in successful criminal convictions, according to an analysis by South African investigative journalism outlet Viewfinder.
“The same across oceans”
For many black South Africans, then, what happened to George Floyd and other black Americans felt like an extension of their own experience.
“The power of these institutions is the same across oceans,” says the organizer of a solidarity vigil for Black Lives Matter in Cape Town last week, who asked to remain anonymous because she is a refugee who worries her activism could threaten her legal status. “We all live in a world where to be black and to be alive is to risk your own life.”
According to court filings by Mr. Khosa’s family, the 40-year-old father was at home with his family the Friday before Easter when soldiers enforcing South Africa’s coronavirus lockdown entered his property, alleging that he had violated the lockdown’s rules by drinking a beer in his yard. (Lockdown regulations prohibited the sale of alcohol, but not drinking at home.) Ms. Montsha and other witnesses have said the soldiers poured beer over his head before choking and beating him.
When the soldiers had gone, Mr. Khosa became increasingly incoherent, vomiting and struggling to speak, according to court papers filed by the family. He lay down, and died three hours later, as they waited for paramedics to arrive.
The South African National Defense Force has denied allegations that soldiers’ actions led to Mr. Khosa’s death. On May 27, its internal investigation cleared the soldiers who allegedly attacked him of responsibility for his death, writing that the “injuries on the body of Mr. Khosa cannot be linked with the cause of death,” and blaming him for “undermining” female soldiers. A police investigation is still underway.
“No one will fill that space,” Ms. Montsha said of Mr. Khosa, speaking to local TV news station eNCA last month.
For his family, he was “the man with the biggest heart in Alexandra,” says Wikus Steyl, the family’s lawyer. (The Khosa family, via Mr. Steyl, declined to comment for this story.) He stretched his own small paycheck to pay for the education expenses of kids in his neighborhood, and had instructed his family to take the lockdown seriously “to keep everyone safe,” Mr. Steyl says.
Harsh lockdown
His death quickly became a symbol for the brutal way South African police officers and soldiers have enforced the country’s coronavirus lockdown. By late May, some 230,000 people had been arrested for lockdown-related offenses. At least 11 South Africans were allegedly killed by police or soldiers in the same period, and another, sex worker Elma Robyn Motsumi, died in police custody, allegedly by suicide, under murky circumstances. To date, no soldier or police officer has been prosecuted. But public outrage is growing, in part because heavy-handed lockdown policing has been directed – albeit in a far less deadly way – at the rich as well as the poor, Dr. Gillespie says.
In mid-May, Mr. Khosa’s family won a court ruling that ordered, among other things, the creation of a simple way for citizens to report allegations of brutality, and of a strict code of conduct for lockdown policing.
But the killing of George Floyd on May 25, and the protests that rippled out from it, further amplified the urgency of finding justice for those killed in South Africa too, says Tumi Moloto. The recent South African graduate of Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, who uses the pronoun they, says they related to what happened in the U.S. because they have experienced the realities of being policed as a black person in both countries.
“We can and we should be outraged for both the United States and for ourselves,” they say. “It’s not either/or. We can hold both those things in our conscience.”
For many, though, justice still feels a long way off. Mr. Steyl says the Khosa family will challenge the defense forces’ findings in court. Activists, meanwhile, say they hope they can sustain the new attention on the case of Mr. Khosa – as well as the other killings and a series of violent evictions during lockdown.
On Monday, demonstrators led by the Economic Freedom Fighters, a leftist opposition party in South Africa, marched to the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg, where they sang a traditional anti-apartheid folk song called “Senzeni Na?” or “What Have I Done?”
What have we done?
Our sin is that we are black?
Get stories that
empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
Our sin is the truth.
They are killing us.


csmonitor--2020-06-09--Why the cold shoulder? N Korea goes incommunicado with S Korea.

North Korea said it was cutting off all communication channels with South Korea on Tuesday , a move experts say could signal Pyongyang has grown frustrated that Seoul has failed to revive lucrative inter-Korean economic projects and persuade the United States to ease sanctions .
The North 's Korean Central News Agency said all cross-border communication lines would be cut off at noon in `` the first step of the determination to completely shut down all contact means with South Korea and get rid of unnecessary things . ''
When South Korean officials tried to contact their North Korean counterparts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announcement on Tuesday , the North Koreans did n't answer , according to the South Korean government .
North Korea has cut communications in the past – not replying to South Korean phone calls or faxes – and then restored those channels when tensions eased .
North Korea has been accused at times of deliberately creating tensions to bolster internal unity or to signal its frustration over a lack of progress in nuclear talks with Washington .
In its announcement , North Korea said Tuesday 's move was a response to South Korea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anti-Pyongyang leaflets across their border .
`` The South Korean authorities connived at the hostile acts against [ North Korea ] by the riff-raff , while trying to dodge heavy responsibility with nasty excuses , '' KCNA said .
South Korea 's liberal government , which seeks improved relations with North Korea , said that cross-border hotlines must be maintained as they are the basic means of communication between the two Koreas .
The Unification Ministry said South Korea will strive to promote peace while abiding by inter-Korean agreements .
For years , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Korean defectors living in the South , have floated huge balloons into North Korea carrying leaflets criticizing leader Kim Jong Un over his nuclear ambitions and human rights record .
The leafleting has sometimes triggered a furious response from North Korea , which bristles at any attempt to undermine its leadership .
South Korea has typically let activists launch such balloons , citing their rights to freedom of speech , but has halted some attempts when North Korean warnings appeared to be serious .
In 2014 , North Korean troops opened fire at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ triggering an exchange of fire that caused no known causalities .
North Korea began taking issue with the leafleting again last week .
Mr. Kim 's sister Kim Yo Jong called defectors involved in recent leafleting `` human scum '' and `` mongrel dogs , '' and she threatened to permanently shut down a liaison office and a jointly run factory park , both in the North , as well as nullify a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement that had aimed to reduce tensions .
North Korea 's latest moves will further set back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for inter-Korean reconciliation .
`` The North Koreans have been trying to find something they can use to express their dissatisfaction and distrust against South Korea .
And they 've now got the leaftleting issue , so I do n't think we can simply resolve [ tensions ] even if we address issues related to the leafleting , '' said Kim Dong-yub , an analyst from Seoul 's Institute for Far Eastern Studies .
He said the North Korean statement also appeared aimed at strengthening internal unity and signaling the North 's resolve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Mr .
Moon , who met Kim Jong Un three times in 2018 , facilitated a flurry of high-profile meetings between Pyongyang and Washington , including the first summit between Mr. Kim and President Donald Trump in June 2018 .
But North Korea has increasingly turned the cold shoulder to Mr .
Moon and suspended virtually all inter-Korean cooperation since a second Kim-Trump summit in early 2019 fell apart due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions .
North Korea has urged Mr .
Moon 's government not to meddle in its diplomacy with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to break away from Washington and revive joint economic projects held up by the sanctions .
Critics of Mr .
Moon 's engagement policy say North Korea had initially expected Mr .
Moon to help it win sanctions relief but eventually got angry with him after Mr. Kim returned from the second Trump summit empty handed .
How far Mr. Kim is willing to go in stoking tensions is unclear .
Some experts say he could take additional steps targeting South Korea , such as shutting down the liaison office or short-range weapons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kim may be reluctant to do something like stage a nuclear or missile test due to concerns it could completely scuttle diplomacy with Washington .
Some see Tuesday 's move as a sign that North Korea is feeling the pinch financially and that its already battered economy perhaps deteriorated further when the coronavirus pandemic forced it to shut its border with China , the North 's biggest trading partner .
North Korea said the decision to sever communications was made by Mr. Kim 's sister and former hard-line military intelligence chief Kim Yong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the elevated political standing of Mr. Kim 's sister .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

North Korea said it was cutting off all communication channels with South Korea on Tuesday, a move experts say could signal Pyongyang has grown frustrated that Seoul has failed to revive lucrative inter-Korean economic projects and persuade the United States to ease sanctions.
The North's Korean Central News Agency said all cross-border communication lines would be cut off at noon in "the first step of the determination to completely shut down all contact means with South Korea and get rid of unnecessary things."
When South Korean officials tried to contact their North Korean counterparts via several channels after the North's announcement on Tuesday, the North Koreans didn't answer, according to the South Korean government.
North Korea has cut communications in the past – not replying to South Korean phone calls or faxes – and then restored those channels when tensions eased. North Korea has been accused at times of deliberately creating tensions to bolster internal unity or to signal its frustration over a lack of progress in nuclear talks with Washington.
In its announcement, North Korea said Tuesday's move was a response to South Korea's failure to stop activists from floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets across their border.
"The South Korean authorities connived at the hostile acts against [North Korea] by the riff-raff, while trying to dodge heavy responsibility with nasty excuses," KCNA said.
South Korea's liberal government, which seeks improved relations with North Korea, said that cross-border hotlines must be maintained as they are the basic means of communication between the two Koreas. The Unification Ministry said South Korea will strive to promote peace while abiding by inter-Korean agreements.
For years, conservative South Korean activists, including North Korean defectors living in the South, have floated huge balloons into North Korea carrying leaflets criticizing leader Kim Jong Un over his nuclear ambitions and human rights record. The leafleting has sometimes triggered a furious response from North Korea, which bristles at any attempt to undermine its leadership.
South Korea has typically let activists launch such balloons, citing their rights to freedom of speech, but has halted some attempts when North Korean warnings appeared to be serious. In 2014, North Korean troops opened fire at propaganda balloons flying toward their territory, triggering an exchange of fire that caused no known causalities.
North Korea began taking issue with the leafleting again last week.
Mr. Kim's sister Kim Yo Jong called defectors involved in recent leafleting "human scum" and "mongrel dogs," and she threatened to permanently shut down a liaison office and a jointly run factory park, both in the North, as well as nullify a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement that had aimed to reduce tensions.
North Korea's latest moves will further set back South Korean President Moon Jae-in's push for inter-Korean reconciliation.
"The North Koreans have been trying to find something they can use to express their dissatisfaction and distrust against South Korea. And they've now got the leaftleting issue, so I don't think we can simply resolve [tensions] even if we address issues related to the leafleting," said Kim Dong-yub, an analyst from Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies.
He said the North Korean statement also appeared aimed at strengthening internal unity and signaling the North's resolve not to make concessions in nuclear talks.
Mr. Moon, who met Kim Jong Un three times in 2018, facilitated a flurry of high-profile meetings between Pyongyang and Washington, including the first summit between Mr. Kim and President Donald Trump in June 2018.
But North Korea has increasingly turned the cold shoulder to Mr. Moon and suspended virtually all inter-Korean cooperation since a second Kim-Trump summit in early 2019 fell apart due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions.
North Korea has urged Mr. Moon's government not to meddle in its diplomacy with Mr. Trump and slammed Seoul for failing to break away from Washington and revive joint economic projects held up by the sanctions.
Critics of Mr. Moon's engagement policy say North Korea had initially expected Mr. Moon to help it win sanctions relief but eventually got angry with him after Mr. Kim returned from the second Trump summit empty handed.
How far Mr. Kim is willing to go in stoking tensions is unclear. Some experts say he could take additional steps targeting South Korea, such as shutting down the liaison office or short-range weapons tests. However, they say Mr. Kim may be reluctant to do something like stage a nuclear or missile test due to concerns it could completely scuttle diplomacy with Washington.
Some see Tuesday's move as a sign that North Korea is feeling the pinch financially and that its already battered economy perhaps deteriorated further when the coronavirus pandemic forced it to shut its border with China, the North's biggest trading partner.
North Korea said the decision to sever communications was made by Mr. Kim's sister and former hard-line military intelligence chief Kim Yong Chol. Some experts say this shows the elevated political standing of Mr. Kim's sister.
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This story was reported by The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-06-08--New Zealand virus free, other countries move to reopen

New Zealand appears to have completely eradicated the coronavirus – at least for now – after health officials said Monday the last known infected person had recovered .
The announcement was greeted with joy around the country and means the nation of 5 million people will be among the first to welcome throngs of fans back into sports stadiums , embrace crowded concerts , and remove seating restrictions from flights .
It has been 17 days since the last new case was reported , during which time an additional 40,000 people have been tested , bringing the total number tested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first time since late February there have been no active cases .
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was confident New Zealand had halted the spread of the virus but it still must be prepared for more .
“ We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now , but elimination is not a point in time , it is a sustained effort , ” she said at a news conference .
“ We almost certainly will see cases here again , and I do want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certainly see cases here again , and that is not a sign that we have failed , it is a reality of this virus .
But if and when that occurs we have to make sure – and we are – that we are prepared.
” More cases are likely to be imported as people enter the country .
For now , the border remains shut to all but citizens and residents , with some limited exceptions .
Everybody who does enter has to go into quarantine .
Ms. Ardern announced that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remaining virus restrictions from midnight , with the exception of the border strictures .
“ We can hold public events without limitations .
Private events such as weddings , functions , and funerals without limitations , ” Ms. Ardern said .
“ Retail is back without limitations .
Hospitality is back without limitations .
Public transport and travel across the country is fully opened.
” Indonesia ’ s capital partly reopened on Monday after two months of lockdown , as the world ’ s fourth most populous nation gradually reopens its economy .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , had been under large-scale social restrictions since April 10 .
Offices , restaurants , and grocery stores reopened with only 50 % of their employees and customers .
Public transportation also resumed services .
On Friday , all worship facilities in the world ’ s most populous Muslim-majority country , including mosques , were allowed to reopen at half capacity and with social-distancing requirements in place .
Schools are remaining closed during this month ’ s transition phase to the so-called “ new normal , ” while some shopping centers , zoos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Images on social media showed long lines of travelers at railway stations waiting to board trains back to Jakarta , with many ignoring distancing rules .
Jakarta has recorded more than 8,000 cases of the coronavirus , including 529 deaths .
Nationwide , there have been 31,186 infections and 1,851 fatalities .
The Russian capital is ending a tight lockdown that has been in place for more than two months , citing a slowdown in the coronavirus outbreak .
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that starting Tuesday residents will no longer be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and can walk , use public transport , and drive without any restrictions .
Hairdressers and beauty salons will be allowed to reopen Tuesday , and cafes and restaurants will be able to open outdoor terraces starting June 16 .
Under the lockdown imposed in late March , all nonessential businesses were closed and residents were only allowed to shop at nearby stores and pharmacies , visit doctors , and walk their dogs .
The restrictions have been gradually eased .
Industrial plants and construction sites were allowed to start working on May @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reopen last Monday .
The number of daily infections in Moscow has dropped from a peak of about 6,700 to about 2,000 recently .
Overall , Russia has registered over 476,000 infections , the world ’ s third-highest caseload after the United States and Brazil , including 5,971 deaths .
Moscow has accounted for nearly half of the nation ’ s infections and coronavirus deaths .
Many of Russia ’ s 85 regions already have eased their lockdowns .
Other reopenings around the globe India is reopening its restaurants , shopping malls , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as its cases grow .
New Delhi also reopened its state borders , allowing interstate movement of persons and goods .
India already partially restored train services and domestic flights and allowed shops and manufacturing to reopen .
E-commerce companies are delivering goods to most places , except containment zones , where the risk of the virus spreading remains high and which are the last places where the lockdown is still being enforced .
The health ministry added 9,983 cases , raising India 's count past 256,000 to fifth most in the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the highest single-day rise and takes the country 's death toll to 7,135 .
China has increasingly opened up with the sharp reduction of cases , and the capital Beijing on Monday said it was reopening the office where citizens can bring their complaints and petitions .
China has recorded a total of 4,634 deaths out of 83,040 total cases since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese industrial city of Wuhan late last year .
In South Korea , schools were fully back in session Monday with the last grades @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the reopening .
South Korea ’ s government is urging people to stay home , if possible , but it is resisting calls to enforce stronger social distancing for fear of further hurting the economy .
It has reported 38 new cases , most of them in the Seoul region , where authorities are trying to stem transmissions among e-commerce workers , door-to-door sellers , and people who went out amid loosened social distancing .
Sri Lankan authorities resumed normal bus and train services on Monday .
The island nation had previously @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lockdown .
It imposed a 24-hour curfew in March .
Since April , the authorities have been easing the lockdown in phases .
Authorities say Sri Lanka has prevented a community spread of the virus .
The country has confirmed 1,835 cases , including 11 deaths .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
AP writers contributed from Jakarta , Indonesia , and Moscow .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free @

New Zealand appears to have completely eradicated the coronavirus – at least for now – after health officials said Monday the last known infected person had recovered.
The announcement was greeted with joy around the country and means the nation of 5 million people will be among the first to welcome throngs of fans back into sports stadiums, embrace crowded concerts, and remove seating restrictions from flights.
It has been 17 days since the last new case was reported, during which time an additional 40,000 people have been tested, bringing the total number tested to about 300,000. Monday marked the first time since late February there have been no active cases.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was confident New Zealand had halted the spread of the virus but it still must be prepared for more.
“We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort,” she said at a news conference. “We almost certainly will see cases here again, and I do want to say that again, we will almost certainly see cases here again, and that is not a sign that we have failed, it is a reality of this virus. But if and when that occurs we have to make sure – and we are – that we are prepared.”
More cases are likely to be imported as people enter the country. For now, the border remains shut to all but citizens and residents, with some limited exceptions. Everybody who does enter has to go into quarantine.
Ms. Ardern announced that the Cabinet had agreed to remove almost all remaining virus restrictions from midnight, with the exception of the border strictures.
“We can hold public events without limitations. Private events such as weddings, functions, and funerals without limitations,” Ms. Ardern said. “Retail is back without limitations. Hospitality is back without limitations. Public transport and travel across the country is fully opened.”
Indonesia prepares to open stores, zoos, and beaches
Indonesia’s capital partly reopened on Monday after two months of lockdown, as the world’s fourth most populous nation gradually reopens its economy. Jakarta, home to 11 million people, had been under large-scale social restrictions since April 10.
Offices, restaurants, and grocery stores reopened with only 50% of their employees and customers. Public transportation also resumed services. On Friday, all worship facilities in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, including mosques, were allowed to reopen at half capacity and with social-distancing requirements in place.
Schools are remaining closed during this month’s transition phase to the so-called “new normal,” while some shopping centers, zoos, and beaches will reopen next week. Images on social media showed long lines of travelers at railway stations waiting to board trains back to Jakarta, with many ignoring distancing rules.
Jakarta has recorded more than 8,000 cases of the coronavirus, including 529 deaths. Nationwide, there have been 31,186 infections and 1,851 fatalities.
Russia eases lockdown
The Russian capital is ending a tight lockdown that has been in place for more than two months, citing a slowdown in the coronavirus outbreak.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that starting Tuesday residents will no longer be required to obtain electronic passes for travel and can walk, use public transport, and drive without any restrictions. Hairdressers and beauty salons will be allowed to reopen Tuesday, and cafes and restaurants will be able to open outdoor terraces starting June 16.
Under the lockdown imposed in late March, all nonessential businesses were closed and residents were only allowed to shop at nearby stores and pharmacies, visit doctors, and walk their dogs. The restrictions have been gradually eased. Industrial plants and construction sites were allowed to start working on May 12 and non-food retailers were permitted to reopen last Monday.
The number of daily infections in Moscow has dropped from a peak of about 6,700 to about 2,000 recently. Overall, Russia has registered over 476,000 infections, the world’s third-highest caseload after the United States and Brazil, including 5,971 deaths.
Moscow has accounted for nearly half of the nation’s infections and coronavirus deaths. Many of Russia’s 85 regions already have eased their lockdowns.
Other reopenings around the globe
India is reopening its restaurants, shopping malls, and religious places in most states even as its cases grow. New Delhi also reopened its state borders, allowing interstate movement of persons and goods. India already partially restored train services and domestic flights and allowed shops and manufacturing to reopen. E-commerce companies are delivering goods to most places, except containment zones, where the risk of the virus spreading remains high and which are the last places where the lockdown is still being enforced. The health ministry added 9,983 cases, raising India's count past 256,000 to fifth most in the world. The 206 fatalities reported Monday is the highest single-day rise and takes the country's death toll to 7,135.
China has increasingly opened up with the sharp reduction of cases, and the capital Beijing on Monday said it was reopening the office where citizens can bring their complaints and petitions. China has recorded a total of 4,634 deaths out of 83,040 total cases since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese industrial city of Wuhan late last year.
In South Korea, schools were fully back in session Monday with the last grades returning to classes in the final phase of the reopening. South Korea’s government is urging people to stay home, if possible, but it is resisting calls to enforce stronger social distancing for fear of further hurting the economy. It has reported 38 new cases, most of them in the Seoul region, where authorities are trying to stem transmissions among e-commerce workers, door-to-door sellers, and people who went out amid loosened social distancing.
Sri Lankan authorities resumed normal bus and train services on Monday. The island nation had previously operated limited services due to a coronavirus lockdown. It imposed a 24-hour curfew in March. Since April, the authorities have been easing the lockdown in phases. Authorities say Sri Lanka has prevented a community spread of the virus. The country has confirmed 1,835 cases, including 11 deaths.
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This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writers contributed from Jakarta, Indonesia, and Moscow.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-06-05--Horrified by strife in my America, finding hope in my Mideast

Across the Middle East , a new generation infused with the culture of protests and speaking truth to power has come of age .
While paranoid strongmen build up their arsenals , young Arabs have been armed with the knowledge that true power is people power .
During the 2011 Arab Spring , the American government was a voice of restraint .
But what happens when that voice is silent ?
What happens when the chaos comes home ?
Separated by thousands of miles and COVID-19 restrictions , I can only witness .
My solace is I have also lived @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be found .
I covered dozens of such protests across the region .
Now I see these images replay in my hometown of Chicago .
It ’ s as if my memories have been jumbled and reassembled , like a puzzle gone wrong .
Chants for social justice fill the air , as does the faint bitter-sour smell of tear gas .
My calves twitch , ready to move .
Police rush in from every direction .
The clubs rain down .
This isn ’ t Minneapolis .
This is Cairo .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ every second .
Visored , armor-clad police form a wall , riot shields up , clubs in hand , their faces barely visible .
The faint bitter-sour smell of tear gas hangs in the air .
My calves twitch , ready to move in either direction , not knowing where the battle lines lie , how close is too close .
The police move a few steps forward ; the crowd rushes back a few strides , before boldly inching back to hold its ground .
Chants for social justice fill the air @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our minds are questions : Who will stand down , who will flinch , who will cross the line , who will get hit ?
Who will not return home tonight ?
Suddenly tear gas is fired .
The police rush in through the smoke from every direction .
Chants turn to screams .
It is now a scramble to get out in one piece .
Journalists hold up press cards – yell “ media !
” – but the clubs rain down .
This isn ’ t Minneapolis , Atlanta , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is Amman .
Nearly a decade ago and for a different cause , millions of young people protested for justice and freedoms across the Arab world , going up against a militarized police force with lives at stake .
I covered dozens of such protests in cities and villages across the region .
Some were peaceful , some turned violent , but all featured the same potent mix of hope , anger , and uncertainty about how it would all end .
Now I see these images replay in my hometown of Chicago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Street scuffles , pandemonium on the North Side .
Armored vehicles like those used to clear out Cairo ’ s Tahrir Square rolling down Michigan Avenue and the Eisenhower .
It is as if my life ’ s memories have been jumbled and reassembled , replacing the backdrops of the Mideast capitals I lived in with the streets where I am from .
Like a puzzle gone wrong .
During the 2011 Arab Spring , the American government was a voice of restraint , championing the right to peaceful protest for justice and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ himself against the use of force against protesters stopped many Arab leaders from escalating violence further and transforming their cities into “ battle spaces.
” There was a cause and effect to our work as journalists ; the abuses by police forces that we documented led to condemnations from Western governments , rattling Arab regimes that rely on Western aid .
Sure , I took my lumps : a club to the back of the neck , a rock to the head , an errant machete grazing my leg .
I still bear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an entire barbecue grill was thrown at me .
But we could count on America ’ s voice to pull us back from the brink .
But what happens when that voice – the United States government ’ s – is either silent or , instead , fanning the flames ?
What happens when America ’ s democratic norms shatter , divisions deepen , and age-old racial inequalities and racist impulses intensify ?
What happens when the chaos comes home ?
Separated by thousands of miles of ocean , COVID-19 restrictions , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with my hometown community .
I can not support my grieving and enraged homeland the way I have done in foreign lands .
All I can do is witness .
If I am stuck reliving times of turmoil , perhaps my solace is that I have also lived the aftermath .
And it ’ s not all bad .
In fact , there is good to be found .
Years before “ silence is compliance ” became a protest chant , the U.S. government fell silent on injustices in this part of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Mideast , Arab strongmen gained the upper hand .
Militarized police became even more militarized ; protests were crushed with deadly force ; leaders passed anti-terror laws marking anyone who dares to speak out or criticize their government a “ terrorist.
” But something else happened , too .
People banded together .
As authoritarians tightened their grip , polarization subsided ; rifts among Islamists , secular citizens , and regional tribes healed .
I watched people of different faiths and political stripes rally around one another for civil liberties , jobs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children .
Neighbors and strangers relied on each other because no government or political movement was coming to save them .
Activism lived on in acts of kindness .
Less than a decade after the Arab Spring , a new generation infused with the culture of protests and speaking truth to power has come of age , rising up in Sudan , in Iraq , in Algeria , in Lebanon .
While paranoid strongmen build up arsenals of tanks and guns , an entire generation of young Arabs has been armed with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I hold these lessons close now : Divisions can ’ t destroy decency , good neighbors don ’ t stay divided , kindness can not be killed .
Even in darkness , communities find one another .
And progress can be derailed , but not erased – no matter who or what stands in the way .

Across the Middle East, a new generation infused with the culture of protests and speaking truth to power has come of age. While paranoid strongmen build up their arsenals, young Arabs have been armed with the knowledge that true power is people power.
During the 2011 Arab Spring, the American government was a voice of restraint. But what happens when that voice is silent? What happens when the chaos comes home? Separated by thousands of miles and COVID-19 restrictions, I can only witness. My solace is I have also lived the aftermath. And there is good to be found.
For the Monitor’s Chicago-born Arab world correspondent, the view homeward of roiling strife and demands for justice has been both disorienting and familiar. His experience has taught him to hope.
I covered dozens of such protests across the region. Now I see these images replay in my hometown of Chicago. It’s as if my memories have been jumbled and reassembled, like a puzzle gone wrong.
Chants for social justice fill the air, as does the faint bitter-sour smell of tear gas. My calves twitch, ready to move. Police rush in from every direction. The clubs rain down. This isn’t Minneapolis. This is Cairo. This is Amman.
I still feel every second. Visored, armor-clad police form a wall, riot shields up, clubs in hand, their faces barely visible. The faint bitter-sour smell of tear gas hangs in the air.
My calves twitch, ready to move in either direction, not knowing where the battle lines lie, how close is too close. The police move a few steps forward; the crowd rushes back a few strides, before boldly inching back to hold its ground.
Chants for social justice fill the air, but in the back of all our minds are questions: Who will stand down, who will flinch, who will cross the line, who will get hit? Who will not return home tonight?
Why We Wrote This For the Monitor’s Chicago-born Arab world correspondent, the view homeward of roiling strife and demands for justice has been both disorienting and familiar. His experience has taught him to hope.
Suddenly tear gas is fired. The police rush in through the smoke from every direction. Chants turn to screams. It is now a scramble to get out in one piece. Journalists hold up press cards – yell “media!” – but the clubs rain down.
This isn’t Minneapolis, Atlanta, or Detroit. This is Cairo, this is Amman. Nearly a decade ago and for a different cause, millions of young people protested for justice and freedoms across the Arab world, going up against a militarized police force with lives at stake.
I covered dozens of such protests in cities and villages across the region. Some were peaceful, some turned violent, but all featured the same potent mix of hope, anger, and uncertainty about how it would all end.
Now I see these images replay in my hometown of Chicago: clashes in the Loop, State Street scuffles, pandemonium on the North Side. Armored vehicles like those used to clear out Cairo’s Tahrir Square rolling down Michigan Avenue and the Eisenhower.
It is as if my life’s memories have been jumbled and reassembled, replacing the backdrops of the Mideast capitals I lived in with the streets where I am from. Like a puzzle gone wrong.
During the 2011 Arab Spring, the American government was a voice of restraint, championing the right to peaceful protest for justice and democracy. Warnings from the U.S. president himself against the use of force against protesters stopped many Arab leaders from escalating violence further and transforming their cities into “battle spaces.”
There was a cause and effect to our work as journalists; the abuses by police forces that we documented led to condemnations from Western governments, rattling Arab regimes that rely on Western aid.
Sure, I took my lumps: a club to the back of the neck, a rock to the head, an errant machete grazing my leg. I still bear a mark on my shoulder from when an entire barbecue grill was thrown at me. But we could count on America’s voice to pull us back from the brink.
But what happens when that voice – the United States government’s – is either silent or, instead, fanning the flames?
What happens when America’s democratic norms shatter, divisions deepen, and age-old racial inequalities and racist impulses intensify? What happens when the chaos comes home?
Separated by thousands of miles of ocean, COVID-19 restrictions, and shuttered airports, I cannot be with my hometown community. I cannot support my grieving and enraged homeland the way I have done in foreign lands. All I can do is witness.
If I am stuck reliving times of turmoil, perhaps my solace is that I have also lived the aftermath. And it’s not all bad. In fact, there is good to be found.
Years before “silence is compliance” became a protest chant, the U.S. government fell silent on injustices in this part of the world.
As America diplomatically retreated from the Mideast, Arab strongmen gained the upper hand. Militarized police became even more militarized; protests were crushed with deadly force; leaders passed anti-terror laws marking anyone who dares to speak out or criticize their government a “terrorist.”
But something else happened, too. People banded together.
As authoritarians tightened their grip, polarization subsided; rifts among Islamists, secular citizens, and regional tribes healed. I watched people of different faiths and political stripes rally around one another for civil liberties, jobs, and a better future for their children.
Neighbors and strangers relied on each other because no government or political movement was coming to save them.
Activism lived on in acts of kindness. Less than a decade after the Arab Spring, a new generation infused with the culture of protests and speaking truth to power has come of age, rising up in Sudan, in Iraq, in Algeria, in Lebanon.
Get stories that
empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
While paranoid strongmen build up arsenals of tanks and guns, an entire generation of young Arabs has been armed with the knowledge: True power is people power.
I hold these lessons close now: Divisions can’t destroy decency, good neighbors don’t stay divided, kindness cannot be killed. Even in darkness, communities find one another. And progress can be derailed, but not erased – no matter who or what stands in the way.


csmonitor--2020-06-11--EU urges members to open domestic borders closed during pandemic

The European Union on Thursday urged all its member countries to start lifting travel restrictions on their common borders from next week , saying that the closures they introduced to tackle the coronavirus do little to limit its spread .
The EU 's executive arm , the European Commission , wants Europe 's ID check-free travel area to be up and running again by the end of June .
Once that has happened , a ban on nonessential travel to the continent can also gradually be eased .
Unveiling the executive arm 's recommendations for helping to breathe new life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told member countries that they `` should open up as soon as possible , and the commission recommends to do it already on Monday . ''
Ms. Johansson said that the virus situation `` is really improving in all member states , the situation is converging , '' and she said that Europe 's Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has reported `` that having internal border restrictions is not an effective measure . ''
In a report dated May 26 , the ECDC said that `` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and long-distance travel will probably be small compared to ongoing transmission occurring in the local setting and as a result of local transportation . ''
Panicked by Italy 's coronavirus outbreak in February , countries in the 26-nation Schengen travel zone – where people and goods move freely without border checks – imposed border restrictions without consulting their neighbors to try to keep the disease out , causing massive traffic jams and blocking medical equipment .
Free movement is a jewel in Europe 's crown that helps its businesses flourish and many European @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Schengen area is under threat from coronavirus travel restrictions .
These added to border pressures already caused by the arrival in Europe of well over 1 million migrants in 2015 .
Many EU countries have announced that they are indeed easing internal border restrictions from June 15 , but some remain reluctant to do so , fearful that the disease might not be entirely under control in certain of their neighbors .
Ms. Johansson said the Schengen area has to function again before Europe 's borders to the outside world can open , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to start easing the ban on travel into the continent by July 1 .
Foreign students , non-EU nationals who normally live in Europe , and certain highly skilled workers could be exempt from the coronavirus restrictions from then on .
After the coronavirus began spreading throughout Europe , the EU in March gradually extended a ban on all nonessential travel into the 27 member countries plus Iceland , Liechtenstein , Norway , and Switzerland until June 15 .
Ending the restrictions could bring another economic boost .
`` While we will all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has come to make concrete preparations for lifting restrictions with countries whose health situation is similar to the EU 's and for resuming visa operations , '' Ms. Johansson said .
The spread of the coronavirus is easing in Europe , but it remains high elsewhere and other countries still have bans in place on the entry of some European nationals , so the commission is reluctant to lift all travel restrictions .
It is urging European countries to take coordinated decisions on whom they let in and from where – given that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ travel in 26 countries – and base their actions on data from the World Health Organization and the ECDC .
The plan is for the member nations to draw up a list of acceptable countries in coming weeks and add to it , or take countries off , depending on how they handle the spread of the disease .
Ms. Johansson refused to be drawn on who should be allowed back in , notably not commenting on American nationals .
But she said that Europe 's neighbors from the Balkans region – Albania @ @ @ @ @ @ @ North Macedonia , and Serbia – should be on the list from July 1 .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

The European Union on Thursday urged all its member countries to start lifting travel restrictions on their common borders from next week, saying that the closures they introduced to tackle the coronavirus do little to limit its spread.
The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, wants Europe's ID check-free travel area to be up and running again by the end of June. Once that has happened, a ban on nonessential travel to the continent can also gradually be eased.
Unveiling the executive arm's recommendations for helping to breathe new life into Europe's virus-ravaged tourism sector, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told member countries that they "should open up as soon as possible, and the commission recommends to do it already on Monday."
Ms. Johansson said that the virus situation "is really improving in all member states, the situation is converging," and she said that Europe's Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has reported "that having internal border restrictions is not an effective measure."
In a report dated May 26, the ECDC said that "the relative significance of transmission through tourism and long-distance travel will probably be small compared to ongoing transmission occurring in the local setting and as a result of local transportation."
Panicked by Italy's coronavirus outbreak in February, countries in the 26-nation Schengen travel zone – where people and goods move freely without border checks – imposed border restrictions without consulting their neighbors to try to keep the disease out, causing massive traffic jams and blocking medical equipment.
Free movement is a jewel in Europe's crown that helps its businesses flourish and many European officials worry that the future of the Schengen area is under threat from coronavirus travel restrictions. These added to border pressures already caused by the arrival in Europe of well over 1 million migrants in 2015.
Many EU countries have announced that they are indeed easing internal border restrictions from June 15, but some remain reluctant to do so, fearful that the disease might not be entirely under control in certain of their neighbors.
Ms. Johansson said the Schengen area has to function again before Europe's borders to the outside world can open, and the commission is keen for countries to start easing the ban on travel into the continent by July 1.
Foreign students, non-EU nationals who normally live in Europe, and certain highly skilled workers could be exempt from the coronavirus restrictions from then on.
After the coronavirus began spreading throughout Europe, the EU in March gradually extended a ban on all nonessential travel into the 27 member countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland until June 15. Ending the restrictions could bring another economic boost.
"While we will all have to remain careful, the time has come to make concrete preparations for lifting restrictions with countries whose health situation is similar to the EU's and for resuming visa operations," Ms. Johansson said.
The spread of the coronavirus is easing in Europe, but it remains high elsewhere and other countries still have bans in place on the entry of some European nationals, so the commission is reluctant to lift all travel restrictions.
It is urging European countries to take coordinated decisions on whom they let in and from where – given that visas for the passport-free Schengen area allow travel in 26 countries – and base their actions on data from the World Health Organization and the ECDC.
The plan is for the member nations to draw up a list of acceptable countries in coming weeks and add to it, or take countries off, depending on how they handle the spread of the disease.
Ms. Johansson refused to be drawn on who should be allowed back in, notably not commenting on American nationals. But she said that Europe's neighbors from the Balkans region – Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia – should be on the list from July 1.
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empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-06-10--‘Say Their Names’: Why the George Floyd protests resonate globally

And protesters and activists say they believe today ’ s anger and anguish , which has rarely garnered such international attention , could be a pivotal moment to renew proposals and policies against racial discrimination worldwide .
In Paris , nearly 20,000 people protested in the streets over the death of Adama Traoré , a 24-year-old Malian Frenchman who died in 2016 after police pinned him down and suffocated him following a chase .
In Toronto , in the days after the death of Mr. Floyd , a Black Canadian , Regis Korchinski-Paquet , died in a fall from her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presence of police .
The tragedy has led to a week of peaceful protest urging Canada to face up to its own racism .
In recent days , thousands of citizens have protested , from the German capital of Berlin to Barrie , Ontario , from Montreal to Mexico City .
While many march in rage at the death of Mr. Floyd , protesters also honor those victims who have died in the custody of their own law enforcement .
The killing of George Floyd beneath the knee of a white police officer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American conversation on race .
Protests have spilled to several countries – and a gaze that has often been fixated on the deeply entrenched racism and violence in the U.S. has shifted domestically .
They are names that may have remained unknown beyond the circle of family who bury them .
Now their memories are being invoked in marches , written in marker on cardboard signs , and commemorated across social media as victims of police brutality against racial and ethnic minorities that spans well beyond the United States .
The killing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a white police officer in Minnesota has not just fundamentally changed the American conversation on race .
Protests have spilled to several countries – and a gaze that has often been fixated on the deeply entrenched racism and violence in the U.S. has shifted domestically .
In recent days , thousands of citizens have protested , from the German capital of Berlin to Barrie , Ontario , from Montreal to Mexico City .
While many march in rage at the death of Mr. Floyd , protesters also honor those victims who have died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enforcement .
In Paris , nearly 20,000 people protested in the streets over the death of Adama Traoré , a 24-year-old Malian-Frenchman who died in 2016 after police pinned him down and suffocated him following a chase that ensued after an ID check .
“ We live with these tragedies , and each subsequent tragedy brings us back to our own , ” says Amal Bentounsi , who lost her own brother in 2012 after he was shot in the back by police .
“ George Floyd ’ s death resurrected awareness about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In Toronto , in the days after video captured Derek Chauvin putting weight on Mr. Floyd ’ s neck for nearly nine minutes , a Black Canadian , Regis Korchinski-Paquet , fell to her death from her high-rise apartment balcony in Toronto in the presence of police .
Though the details are unclear , the tragedy has led to a week of peaceful protest urging Canada to face up to its own racism .
“ This is happening all over the world , it ’ s not just a single situation in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a university student in criminology , at one of several marches held in Toronto over the weekend .
And protesters and activists say they believe today ’ s anger and anguish , which has rarely garnered such international attention , could be a pivotal moment to renew proposals and policies – from mandating body cameras and collecting better race-based data to more politically divisive calls like “ defunding ” police – against the deafening silence of resignation and denial about racial discrimination worldwide .
For Ms. Bentounsi in France , decades of discrimination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man of North African descent with multiple theft and drug charges , a perfect candidate for police violence in a country that has long been taught to fear those like him .
She is not naive about her brother .
At the age of 13 , Mr. Bentounsi became the youngest French person to be imprisoned at the time , after setting a garbage can on fire outside a preschool .
He spent the next decade in and out of jail .
Then in 2012 , after going on the run during a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him in a Paris suburb .
When they approached him , he threw a fake grenade and police shot him as he ran .
He died at age 29 .
Ms. Bentounsi says it ’ s almost as if her brother knew his fate before everyone else .
His favorite song had been “ Hexagone , ” a 1975 French song that called France a police state .
When Ms. Bentounsi poked fun at him for humming the old-fashioned tune , her brother scoffed back , “ You don ’ t understand a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him are killed at the hands of police is a narrative without data , since the government does not track race-based killings and censuses on race or ethnicity are banned in France .
Instead anecdotes mount , often explosively .
In 2005 , when minority youths were chased by police and two electrocuted after hiding in a power substation in the outskirts of Paris , it led to three weeks of rioting .
France was roiled anew in debates about the marginalization of ethnic minorities after the terrorist attacks in 2015 in Paris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ address the issue of inclusion in France and less to tackle race head-on .
Nacira Guénif-Souilamas , a socio-anthropologist at the University of Paris 8 , says the concept of the “ other ” traces back to France ’ s foundation as a colonial power and slave state .
“ This idea of the ‘ other ’ was always entrenched in how the French state thought of itself and how it exerted power , ” she says .
Even today there has been an unwillingness for the government to recognize race as a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or discriminating police surveillance .
After the June 2 Paris protest , Christophe Castaner , France ’ s minister of the Interior , told the nation there was no structural racism within the French police .
After a second week of protests exploded across the nation , he reiterated that the police as a system was not racist , but said that there would be zero tolerance for officers who are .
Sebastian Roché , a sociologist of police and security at the French National Center for Scientific Research , says a growing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minority voices are challenging the traditional narrative .
“ There is a divorce between civil society and the state , ” he says .
That introspection is not limited to France .
Over the weekend , as thousands took the streets in peaceful marches across the United Kingdom , signs bearing Mr. Floyd ’ s name and Black Lives Matter shared space with those linking U.S. racism to British colonialism .
In Bristol , protesters tore down a controversial statue of a slave trader .
Ms. Bentounsi says now is the time to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attention beyond devastated families or activists .
Her nonprofit has created an app called UVP ( Urgence Violences Policieres , or Police Violence Emergency ) .
Because the use of body cameras by French police has been spotty and victims complain they destroy phones or erase images taken by bystanders , the app would allow users to quickly upload images to the nonprofit to be reviewed by a lawyer to give society a broader view of discrimination at play .
“ We as a nonprofit are deeply hurt by the comments being made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about this racist crime taking place in the U.S. when no one is even talking about what is happening in France.
” In Canada , that kind of denial has been easier to promulgate with its position next to the U.S. , where racial divides often rage to the surface .
Instead Canada promotes its tolerance and diversity as part of its national ethos , particularly in its biggest city , Toronto , which is among the world ’ s most multiethnic .
But that ’ s not the Canada that many indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not systematically collected in Canada either .
But the Ontario Human Rights Commission published a landmark report in 2018 that showed between 2013 and 2017 , a Black person in Toronto was nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be involved in a fatal shooting by the Toronto Police Service , despite Black people making up only 8.8 % of Toronto ’ s population .
As protests mounted over the week eulogizing Ms. Korchinski-Paquet , Chantel Moore , a young First Nations woman living in New Brunswick , was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call to check on her well-being that is now under investigation .
Denise O ’ Neil Green , vice president of equity and community inclusion at Ryerson University in Toronto , says both cases have amplified the movement here , shattering the myth that racism doesn ’ t exist in Canada .
“ What I see here as a pivotal movement , not only in Canada but around the world , is that people see themselves reflected in this experience in terms of interactions with the police , ” she says .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ catalyst for people to begin to speak their own truths and be critical of their institutions of policing and how to begin to disrupt that.
” It is a demand that is harder for leaders to ignore , as they field questions about requiring law enforcement to wear body cameras or reprioritizing funds from police to more robust social services .
Last week the premiers of Quebec and Ontario denied systematic racism in their provinces , but under fire , Ontario Premier Doug Ford the next day walked back his statement .
Prime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a protest in Ottawa in a sign of solidarity with protests in the Canadian capital .
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders did so on Friday , and then later announced he is resigning this summer .
Blasted as hollow publicity stunts by some critics , other protesters say it ’ s a sign that white privilege can no longer remain unquestioned .
Clive McFoy , a hospital worker originally from Jamaica who was at the Toronto protest Friday , says he brought his two college-aged sons to bear witness to what could become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Says his son Keenan : “ When I saw the video of Floyd , I was so angered .
But I didn ’ t want to sit there and be angry , ” he says .
“ Seeing everything going on in the U.S. inspired me to want to do more .
They are doing a bunch of stuff , why can ’ t we ?
” The pandemic has ground the world to a halt .
But it has put racial and class divides in sharp relief as poor minorities have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That has lent more urgency to the anti-racism movement that is growing internationally – and given police more room to abuse powers , the very tactics for which protesters are demanding justice .
In the Mexican state of Jalisco , a young bricklayer named Giovanni López was detained by police last month for reportedly not wearing a face mask .
He died after being taken into police custody .
Over the past several days , angry , mostly young protesters have taken to the streets calling for an end to police brutality – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the U.S. “ If this news about Giovanni came out before [ the George Floyd demonstrations ] we probably wouldn ’ t have seen protests like this , ” says María Inclán , a professor of political science at Mexico ’ s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics ( CIDE ) who focuses on social movements .
Race has not risen to the fore at protests in Mexico , where the history of the Mexican Revolution defines all Mexicans as mestizo , a mix of indigenous and Spanish blood , history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long served to shut down conversations on race , even though darker-skinned Mexicans live a daily reality of discrimination .
“ It is based on this argument that we are all equal , ” says Valeria Angola , a member of the Afro-Mexican women ’ s collective Flores de Jamaica , which was founded to draw attention to the realities of being Black in Mexico .
“ But when you start to see who can access higher education or who can stay home or maintain a healthy distance during COVID-19 , you realize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A 2017 study published by Vanderbilt University ’ s Latin American Public Opinion Project found that “ race is the single most important determinant of a Mexican citizen ’ s economic and educational attainment.
” There ’ s a 45 % gap in educational achievement between the darkest- and lightest-skinned Mexicans , the report found .
Report co-author Daniel Zizumbo says that because racism doesn ’ t exist in the national discourse , there are few studies on how racial bias plays out in policing or the judicial system .
“ We know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. , but in Mexico everyone assumes that we are colorblind .
And because of that , we don ’ t have the chance to study it profoundly or implement policies that cite these biases.
” But now some Mexicans are calling for recognition of how much discrimination penetrates every facet of Mexican society , often with life-or-death stakes .
Celebrities like actor Gael García Bernal and director Guillermo del Toro have spoken out about police brutality and the need for justice in Mr. López ’ s death .
And individuals are trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the role of race in everyday life .
“ Are you against racism in the U.S.… ?
But in Mexico you say chacha [ infantilizing slang for a housekeeper ] , indio [ Indian ] , you make fun of [ Oscar-nominated indigenous actress ] Yalitzia [ Aparicio ] ... ” wrote Ana Carlota Hervel , a lawyer in Mexico City , on her Facebook page .
“ I have seen a lot of reactions here in Mexico [ to the George Floyd protests in the US ] that have surprised me , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wave of indignation has been ignited.
” In South Africa , some activists have drawn strength from the movement growing around the globe .
When a man named Collins Khosa was killed by soldiers enforcing South Africa ’ s strict lockdown in April , there was an initial outcry .
But it grew in strength and intensity after protests began in the U.S. following the killing of Mr. Floyd .
Young Black activists like Tumi Moloto , who is referred to as they , said they saw it as their responsibility to speak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killing and that of Mr. Floyd .
Such international solidarity in the anti-apartheid movement was a crucial part of the fight , they say .
“ So we as South Africans need to see the struggle of Black people anywhere as the struggle of Black people everywhere.
” “ The silver lining here is that what ’ s happening in the U.S. right now is showing us that a different world is possible .
The conversations are beginning in the U.S. and South Africa [ around police brutality ] , ” they add @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that different world we ’ ve been dreaming of.
” But for many that global fight begins with the fight for justice for each individual life , including Mr. Traoré , Mr. Bentounsi , Ms. Korchinski-Paquet , Ms. Moore , Mr. López , and Mr. Khosa .
It ’ s a movement that has also grown from Minneapolis , where Mr. Floyd was killed , across the world .
Activists in the American city have erected memorials shaped like tombstones across a green lawn , listing 100 African Americans who have died @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police .
In white block letters laid out in the grass , three words that have become a rallying cry now around the world , spell clearly : “ Say Their Names.
” Editor ’ s note : This story has been updated to correct names and misspellings .

Colette Davidson,Ryan Lenora Brown,Sara Miller Llana,Whitney Eulich

And protesters and activists say they believe today’s anger and anguish, which has rarely garnered such international attention, could be a pivotal moment to renew proposals and policies against racial discrimination worldwide.
In Paris, nearly 20,000 people protested in the streets over the death of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old Malian Frenchman who died in 2016 after police pinned him down and suffocated him following a chase. In Toronto, in the days after the death of Mr. Floyd, a Black Canadian, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, died in a fall from her high-rise apartment balcony in Toronto in the presence of police. The tragedy has led to a week of peaceful protest urging Canada to face up to its own racism.
The killing of George Floyd has sparked protests outside the U.S., and not just about American police injustice. Those abroad are taking the moment to raise their voices about racist policing at home.
In recent days, thousands of citizens have protested, from the German capital of Berlin to Barrie, Ontario, from Montreal to Mexico City. While many march in rage at the death of Mr. Floyd, protesters also honor those victims who have died in the custody of their own law enforcement.
The killing of George Floyd beneath the knee of a white police officer in Minnesota has not just fundamentally changed the American conversation on race. Protests have spilled to several countries – and a gaze that has often been fixated on the deeply entrenched racism and violence in the U.S. has shifted domestically.
Adama Traoré.
Amine Bentounsi.
Regis Korchinski-Paquet.
Why We Wrote This The killing of George Floyd has sparked protests outside the U.S., and not just about American police injustice. Those abroad are taking the moment to raise their voices about racist policing at home.
Chantel Moore.
Giovanni López.
Collins Khosa.
They are names that may have remained unknown beyond the circle of family who bury them. Now their memories are being invoked in marches, written in marker on cardboard signs, and commemorated across social media as victims of police brutality against racial and ethnic minorities that spans well beyond the United States.
The killing of George Floyd beneath the knee of a white police officer in Minnesota has not just fundamentally changed the American conversation on race. Protests have spilled to several countries – and a gaze that has often been fixated on the deeply entrenched racism and violence in the U.S. has shifted domestically.
In recent days, thousands of citizens have protested, from the German capital of Berlin to Barrie, Ontario, from Montreal to Mexico City. While many march in rage at the death of Mr. Floyd, protesters also honor those victims who have died in the custody of their own law enforcement.
In Paris, nearly 20,000 people protested in the streets over the death of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old Malian-Frenchman who died in 2016 after police pinned him down and suffocated him following a chase that ensued after an ID check. “We live with these tragedies, and each subsequent tragedy brings us back to our own,” says Amal Bentounsi, who lost her own brother in 2012 after he was shot in the back by police. “George Floyd’s death resurrected awareness about what is going on in France.”
In Toronto, in the days after video captured Derek Chauvin putting weight on Mr. Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, a Black Canadian, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, fell to her death from her high-rise apartment balcony in Toronto in the presence of police. Though the details are unclear, the tragedy has led to a week of peaceful protest urging Canada to face up to its own racism. “This is happening all over the world, it’s not just a single situation in the U.S.,” says Keenan McFoy, a university student in criminology, at one of several marches held in Toronto over the weekend.
And protesters and activists say they believe today’s anger and anguish, which has rarely garnered such international attention, could be a pivotal moment to renew proposals and policies – from mandating body cameras and collecting better race-based data to more politically divisive calls like “defunding” police – against the deafening silence of resignation and denial about racial discrimination worldwide.
***
For Ms. Bentounsi in France, decades of discrimination made her brother Amine, a young man of North African descent with multiple theft and drug charges, a perfect candidate for police violence in a country that has long been taught to fear those like him.
She is not naive about her brother. At the age of 13, Mr. Bentounsi became the youngest French person to be imprisoned at the time, after setting a garbage can on fire outside a preschool. He spent the next decade in and out of jail. Then in 2012, after going on the run during a prison leave, police were called on him in a Paris suburb.
When they approached him, he threw a fake grenade and police shot him as he ran. He died at age 29.
Ms. Bentounsi says it’s almost as if her brother knew his fate before everyone else. His favorite song had been “Hexagone,” a 1975 French song that called France a police state. When Ms. Bentounsi poked fun at him for humming the old-fashioned tune, her brother scoffed back, “You don’t understand a thing.”
Just how often minorities like him are killed at the hands of police is a narrative without data, since the government does not track race-based killings and censuses on race or ethnicity are banned in France. Instead anecdotes mount, often explosively.
In 2005, when minority youths were chased by police and two electrocuted after hiding in a power substation in the outskirts of Paris, it led to three weeks of rioting. France was roiled anew in debates about the marginalization of ethnic minorities after the terrorist attacks in 2015 in Paris. But little has moved to fully address the issue of inclusion in France and less to tackle race head-on.
Nacira Guénif-Souilamas, a socio-anthropologist at the University of Paris 8, says the concept of the “other” traces back to France’s foundation as a colonial power and slave state. “This idea of the ‘other’ was always entrenched in how the French state thought of itself and how it exerted power,” she says.
Even today there has been an unwillingness for the government to recognize race as a central issue of poverty, crime, or discriminating police surveillance. After the June 2 Paris protest, Christophe Castaner, France’s minister of the Interior, told the nation there was no structural racism within the French police. After a second week of protests exploded across the nation, he reiterated that the police as a system was not racist, but said that there would be zero tolerance for officers who are.
Sebastian Roché, a sociologist of police and security at the French National Center for Scientific Research, says a growing alliance of intellectuals, leftists, and minority voices are challenging the traditional narrative. “There is a divorce between civil society and the state,” he says.
That introspection is not limited to France. Over the weekend, as thousands took the streets in peaceful marches across the United Kingdom, signs bearing Mr. Floyd’s name and Black Lives Matter shared space with those linking U.S. racism to British colonialism. In Bristol, protesters tore down a controversial statue of a slave trader.
Ms. Bentounsi says now is the time to push changes that are garnering more mainstream attention beyond devastated families or activists. Her nonprofit has created an app called UVP (Urgence Violences Policieres, or Police Violence Emergency). Because the use of body cameras by French police has been spotty and victims complain they destroy phones or erase images taken by bystanders, the app would allow users to quickly upload images to the nonprofit to be reviewed by a lawyer to give society a broader view of discrimination at play.
“We as a nonprofit are deeply hurt by the comments being made [by the government or media] about this racist crime taking place in the U.S. when no one is even talking about what is happening in France.”
***
In Canada, that kind of denial has been easier to promulgate with its position next to the U.S., where racial divides often rage to the surface. Instead Canada promotes its tolerance and diversity as part of its national ethos, particularly in its biggest city, Toronto, which is among the world’s most multiethnic. But that’s not the Canada that many indigenous and non-white Canadians experience.
Race-based data is not systematically collected in Canada either. But the Ontario Human Rights Commission published a landmark report in 2018 that showed between 2013 and 2017, a Black person in Toronto was nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be involved in a fatal shooting by the Toronto Police Service, despite Black people making up only 8.8% of Toronto’s population.
Blair Gable/Reuters View caption Hide caption Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wears a mask as he takes a knee during a rally against the killing of George Floyd, on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario, June 5, 2020.
As protests mounted over the week eulogizing Ms. Korchinski-Paquet, Chantel Moore, a young First Nations woman living in New Brunswick, was shot by a police officer during a call to check on her well-being that is now under investigation. Denise O’Neil Green, vice president of equity and community inclusion at Ryerson University in Toronto, says both cases have amplified the movement here, shattering the myth that racism doesn’t exist in Canada.
“What I see here as a pivotal movement, not only in Canada but around the world, is that people see themselves reflected in this experience in terms of interactions with the police,” she says. “This moment I really see as a catalyst for people to begin to speak their own truths and be critical of their institutions of policing and how to begin to disrupt that.”
It is a demand that is harder for leaders to ignore, as they field questions about requiring law enforcement to wear body cameras or reprioritizing funds from police to more robust social services. Last week the premiers of Quebec and Ontario denied systematic racism in their provinces, but under fire, Ontario Premier Doug Ford the next day walked back his statement.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a knee at a protest in Ottawa in a sign of solidarity with protests in the Canadian capital. Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders did so on Friday, and then later announced he is resigning this summer. Blasted as hollow publicity stunts by some critics, other protesters say it’s a sign that white privilege can no longer remain unquestioned. Clive McFoy, a hospital worker originally from Jamaica who was at the Toronto protest Friday, says he brought his two college-aged sons to bear witness to what could become a moment of “social change.”
Says his son Keenan: “When I saw the video of Floyd, I was so angered. But I didn’t want to sit there and be angry,” he says. “Seeing everything going on in the U.S. inspired me to want to do more. They are doing a bunch of stuff, why can’t we?”
***
The pandemic has ground the world to a halt. But it has put racial and class divides in sharp relief as poor minorities have been among the worst hit by COVID-19. That has lent more urgency to the anti-racism movement that is growing internationally – and given police more room to abuse powers, the very tactics for which protesters are demanding justice.
In the Mexican state of Jalisco, a young bricklayer named Giovanni López was detained by police last month for reportedly not wearing a face mask. He died after being taken into police custody. Over the past several days, angry, mostly young protesters have taken to the streets calling for an end to police brutality – a movement that was inspired by protests in the U.S. “If this news about Giovanni came out before [the George Floyd demonstrations] we probably wouldn’t have seen protests like this,” says María Inclán, a professor of political science at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) who focuses on social movements.
Race has not risen to the fore at protests in Mexico, where the history of the Mexican Revolution defines all Mexicans as mestizo, a mix of indigenous and Spanish blood, history, and culture. That narrative has long served to shut down conversations on race, even though darker-skinned Mexicans live a daily reality of discrimination.
“It is based on this argument that we are all equal,” says Valeria Angola, a member of the Afro-Mexican women’s collective Flores de Jamaica, which was founded to draw attention to the realities of being Black in Mexico. “But when you start to see who can access higher education or who can stay home or maintain a healthy distance during COVID-19, you realize in reality we are not equal.”
Edgard Garrido/Reuters View caption Hide caption A man holds a candle during a demonstration against the killing of George Floyd, in front of the U.S embassy in Mexico City June 4, 2020.
A 2017 study published by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project found that “race is the single most important determinant of a Mexican citizen’s economic and educational attainment.” There’s a 45% gap in educational achievement between the darkest- and lightest-skinned Mexicans, the report found.
Report co-author Daniel Zizumbo says that because racism doesn’t exist in the national discourse, there are few studies on how racial bias plays out in policing or the judicial system. “We know this [bias] happens in the U.S., but in Mexico everyone assumes that we are colorblind. And because of that, we don’t have the chance to study it profoundly or implement policies that cite these biases.”
But now some Mexicans are calling for recognition of how much discrimination penetrates every facet of Mexican society, often with life-or-death stakes. Celebrities like actor Gael García Bernal and director Guillermo del Toro have spoken out about police brutality and the need for justice in Mr. López’s death. And individuals are trying to start conversations among their peers about the role of race in everyday life.
“Are you against racism in the U.S.… ? But in Mexico you say chacha [infantilizing slang for a housekeeper], indio [Indian], you make fun of [Oscar-nominated indigenous actress] Yalitzia [Aparicio] ...” wrote Ana Carlota Hervel, a lawyer in Mexico City, on her Facebook page.
“I have seen a lot of reactions here in Mexico [to the George Floyd protests in the US] that have surprised me,” says Ms. Angola. “This wave of indignation has been ignited.”
***
In South Africa, some activists have drawn strength from the movement growing around the globe.
When a man named Collins Khosa was killed by soldiers enforcing South Africa’s strict lockdown in April, there was an initial outcry. But it grew in strength and intensity after protests began in the U.S. following the killing of Mr. Floyd.
Young Black activists like Tumi Moloto, who is referred to as they, said they saw it as their responsibility to speak out against both Mr. Khosa’s killing and that of Mr. Floyd. Such international solidarity in the anti-apartheid movement was a crucial part of the fight, they say. “So we as South Africans need to see the struggle of Black people anywhere as the struggle of Black people everywhere.”
“The silver lining here is that what’s happening in the U.S. right now is showing us that a different world is possible. The conversations are beginning in the U.S. and South Africa [around police brutality],” they add. “Maybe they are the start of that different world we’ve been dreaming of.”
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But for many that global fight begins with the fight for justice for each individual life, including Mr. Traoré, Mr. Bentounsi, Ms. Korchinski-Paquet, Ms. Moore, Mr. López, and Mr. Khosa. It’s a movement that has also grown from Minneapolis, where Mr. Floyd was killed, across the world. Activists in the American city have erected memorials shaped like tombstones across a green lawn, listing 100 African Americans who have died in the U.S. at the hands of police. In white block letters laid out in the grass, three words that have become a rallying cry now around the world, spell clearly: “Say Their Names.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct names and misspellings.