Political Thespianism As Looney Tunes As A Dodo Bird
Respecting parliamentary procedure and the “Rules of Decorum & Debate in the House [of Representatives],” we will observe, “The gentlelady from Georgia’s 14th congressional district is as looney tunes as a dodo bird that thinks it can fly and her recent performance deserves a reward for outstanding political thespianism.
In September 2021, Brandon Straka – a pro-the-former-president social media personality and “influencer” – whatever that means - agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of Engaging in Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct for his role in the January 6 insurrection. Reportedly, he did not enter the Capitol Building, but he did sign a statement of offense agreeing that he yelled “go, go, go” as members of the mob entered building and said “take it, take it” after rioters grabbed a shield from a police officer.
Straka was sentenced to 90 days of home confinement and three years’ probation.
And then it gets interesting.
A federal court clerk accidentally unsealed sensitive records detailing his cooperation with federal investigators. The records described “significant information,” including a voicemail from another January 6 defendant and information that was “valuable in the governments prosecution” of organizers of the former president’s “Stop The Steal” efforts.
At sentencing, Judge Dabney Friedrich acknowledged that Straka’s “criminal conduct” had been “very serious” but was “mitigated somewhat by his early plea and by his willingness to assist the government by providing complete and truthful information.”
In jailhouse parlance, Straka was “a rat,” “a snitch.”
After sentencing, however, Straka began making statements that appeared to negate or minimize the truth of his initial plea and the judge seemed to want no part of it. “I want you to know I would gladly hold an evidentiary hearing to address his [new] claim,” the judge informed the defendant’s attorney. “I suggest you tell him to exercise some discretion that he didn’t show before Jan. 6, during Jan. 6, and apparently after Jan 6.”
While Straka may have accepted the judges warning, like a Shakespearian-actor-turned-Improv-comedian, he turned up at the early August 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in August - with a whole new schtick!
Straka made his center stage appearance dressed in a from-the-Saturday Night Life-costume-department orange jump suit and “locked” himself in a make-shift jail cell with a chalk board on which he crossed off the days he never spent in prison.
Lo and behold! In dea ex machina fashion, the gentlelady from Georgia’s 14th congressional district admitted herself to Straka’s fantasy non-jail cell to comfort and pray with the imaginary “prisoner of conscience.”
Supporters of the almost nine-hundred men and women who have been arrested and charged in connection with the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol are fond of calling these insurrectionists “prisoners of conscience.”
They aren’t!
Amnesty International, “a global movement of more than 10 million people who take injustice personally,” was established in 1961, when British lawyer Peter Benenson became outraged after two Portuguese students were jailed for raising a toast to freedom. “Only when the last prisoner of conscience has been freed, when the last torture chamber has been closed, when the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a reality for the world’s people, will our work be done,” declared Benenson.
With regional hubs in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, the organization works at the national level in 70 countries in order to respond quickly to events as they happen.
AI defines “prisoners of conscience” in terms of “seven main problems”:
Someone who has not used or advocated violence or hatred in circumstances leading to their imprisonment but is imprisoned solely because of who they are (sexual orientation, ethnic, national or social origin, language, birth, color, sex or economic status)
Arbitrary detention – being detained for no legitimate reason or without legal process
Incommunicado – being detained without access to family, lawyers etc.
Secret detention – being detained in a secret location
Inadequate prison conditions – such as overcrowding and prolonged solitary confinement
Unfair trials – trials conducted without ensuring minimal legal process
Torture and other ill-treatment.
In 2017, Dennis Christensen became the first Jehovah’s Witness arrested, charged and sentenced to a penal colony for “organizing the activities of an extremist organization.” On June 24, 2020, the Lgov District Court in central Russia commuted the remainder of his sentence toa US$5,700 fine and the following day the state prosecutors appealed that decision and Christensen was placed in punitive confinement for violating the penal colony’s rules, including not wearing a special prisoner’s jacket and being in the canteen at the wrong time.
“[I]t’s increasingly clear that the Russian state will not ease its grip under any circumstances and that tolerance and religious pluralism remain inconceivable notions for the Russian authorities,” said Amnesty International’s Russia Researcher, Natalia Prilutskaya. “Dennis Christensen and all Jehovah’s Witnesses persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of religion are prisoners of conscience… Russia must abide by its international human rights obligations and stop persecution of people simply for practicing their religion.”
In October 2021, a court in the southwestern Russian city of Astrakhan sentenced four Jehovah’s witness to lengthy prison terms as part of an ongoing crackdown on members of the group. Rustam Diarov, Yevgeny Ivanov and Sergei Klikunow were found guilty of creating an extremist community and sentenced to eight years in prison; Olga Ivanova was convicted of taking part in an extremist group’s activities and sentenced to three-and-a-half years on extremism charges. Russian authorities labeled the U.S.-based Jehovah’s Witnesses “extremists”
The Russian authorities labeled Jehovah’s witnesses as extremists in 2017; authorities have raided believers’ homes across Russia, charging dozens of people. Radio Free Europe reported in October 2021 that 257 criminal cases had been launched against members of the denomination, 559 men and women had been charged with extremism and 70 believers were then currently incarcerated. Witnesses are known for rejecting military service, refusing to celebrate national and religious holidays or birthdays, and have been viewed with suspicion in Russia, where the Russian Orthodox Church is the dominant religion.
On July 14, 2021 representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Cuban Ministry of the Interior announced investigations of individuals responsible for the organization of the protests and “crimes” committed three days earlier. By August 4, sixty-two people had been tried for events related to the peaceful pro-freedom July 11 protests – most charged with “public disorder,” “resistance,” “contempt” and “incitement to commit a crime” and “damage..”
AI noted that “public disorder” is generally charged to silence dissent and “contempt” charges can be used to target anyone who is critical of the government. Among the six “prisoners of conscience” cited by Amnesty International on August 19 were artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, who had been designated as a prisoner of conscience on three prior occasions; activist and unofficial leader of the political opposition group “Patriotic Union of Cuba” Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia; and Maykel Castillo Perez, a musician, human rights activist and one of the authors of Patria y Vida – Fatherland and Life, the anthem of Cubans protesting the absence of political and social freedoms on the island.
“We’ve named six people prisoners of conscience – in a symbolic gesture to the many hundreds more who likely deserve the designation -and call for their immediate and unconditional release,” noted AI Americas director Erika Guevara-Rosas.
On May 12, 2021, Democratic Voice of Burma reported Min Nyo was sentenced to three years in prison for reporting on the crackdown on social and political freedoms following the February 1 military coup in Myanmar (Burma) that overthrew the elected government of Nobel Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi.
In violation of internationally recognized rights to freedom of expression, the military arrested, beat and sentenced reporter Min Nyo under provisions of a colonial era (1824 to 1948) law that makes it a crime to publish or circulate any “statement, rumour or report, with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, any officer, soldier, sailor or airman, in the Army, Navy or Air Force to mutiny or otherwise disregard or fail in his duty as such.”
“The conviction and three-year sentence handed down to Min Nyo shows the appalling situation faced by journalists in Myanmar, where they risk life and liberty to shed light on the military’s abuses. The military authorities are ruthless, determined to crush dissent by silencing those who seek to expose their crimes,” said Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Southeast & East Asia, Emerlynne Gil. “Since the 1 February coup, scores of journalists have been arbitrarily detained, threatened, arrested and even shot at. Journalism in Myanmar has effectively been criminalized and DVB, a publication which began in exile, has been forced underground once more.”
On August 9, 2022, a terrorism tribunal in Saudi Arabia increased the sentence of Slam al-Shehab from six to thirty-four years for her writing and peaceful Twitter activities in support of women’s rights, including her writing about Loujain al-Hathloul, who was best known for her campaign to legalize driving for women and had been jailed on charges of “spying with foreign parties” and “conspiring against the kingdom.” She was conditionally released in 2020 and is still banned from travelling.
Shehab, in the final year of her studies at England’s Leeds University School of Medicine, was on holiday at the time of her arrest. Before her trial, she was held in solitary confinement for 285 days – a violation of international standards and Saudi Arabia’s Law of Criminal Procedure. She was also denied access to legal representation during her detention and interrogations.
“It is outrageous that Salma al-Shehab, a PhD student and mother of two from Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a minority, has been handed down such a cruel and unlawful punishment simply for using Twitter and retweeting activists who support women’s rights,” said Diana Semaan, Amnesty International’s Acting Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Salma al-Shehab should never have been convicted in the first place, but to have her sentence increased from six to 34 years following an unfair trial shows that the authorities intend to use her to set an example amid their unrelenting crackdown on free speech. She must be immediately and unconditionally released. The Saudi authorities must allow her to reunite to her family and to continue her studies in the UK.”
In the run-up to the November 2022 midterm elections, looney tunes politicians and their cronies will cry well-staged crocodile tears for January 6 insurrectionists – including those who snitched on their fellow insurgents.
They’ll outshine the Marlon Brandos and Greta Garbos of movies and TV with their well-memorized and well-rehearsed lies about “political prisoners” and “prisoners of conscience.” [We couldn’t go further back in movie history and you are free to substitute the names of your choice.]
But there’s one thing the political thespians will not tell you: By August 17, 2022 three-hundred-and-sixty-three rioters – 363 – had pled guilty; more than two hundred have been sentenced, including half a dozen sentenced to four years or more and two who received more than seven years; more than eight-hundred-and-ninety – 890 – have been charged with crimes related to the January 6 Capitol insurrection. The FBI continues to identify people who participated in the Capitol siege and approximately 2,000 could ultimately face charges.
So, remember: The tears running down the cheeks of the gentlelady from Georgia’s 14th district and the Capitol rioter-snitch in the phony jail cell ain’t holy water and they ain’t real.