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By 1500 hours on 16 August 2019,  Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) had attended to 128 arrests. Some of the arrests were executed in a dragnet manner. A total of 12 people have been treated by medical doctors following assaults and torture at the hands of the police.  This number is expected to increase as more reports are received.

It is clear from eye-witness accounts and video footage that the protestors gathered at Africa Unity Square were peaceful, posed no threat to people or property. In fact, our monitors on the ground witnessed the crowd sitting on the ground when the police suddenly and menacingly advanced towards the protestors mainly targeting women.  One woman was reportedly left unconscious following the attack.  Several groups of people were rounded up at Corner Second Street and Samora  Machel and at Parliament Building in the Harare Central Business District. Thereat, they were thoroughly beaten while already under arrest and not attempting to escape. Other reports were received from Chitungwiza and Norton. The total number of victims is still to be ascertained.

The brutal attacks on protestors is in clear violation of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) which provides for a clear procedure of dispersing illegal gatherings. We expect law enforcement agents to follow provisions of the laws that they are supposed to enforce. The Constitution states that the police, as part of the security sector, must not violate fundamental rights or freedoms of any person. The police also have a constitutional obligation  to uphold provisions of the Constitution, which includes fundamental freedoms and human rights. In particular, section 53 that guarantees freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. We are concerned that the government continues to brutalise innocent citizens with impunity.

We call upon the relevant government departments of Zimbabwe to:

• investigate these cases of torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and make perpetrators accountable;
• Respect the pre-trial rights of all persons arrested in a series of dragnet arrests around the city to be respected as provided in section 50 of the Constitution.

As we continue to monitor the situation, we urge the international community to condemn the ongoing violations and call on the SADC leaders currently meeting in Tanzania to remind the government of Zimbabwe to respect the fundamental rights of the people to peaceful assembly and association, freedom from torture and the freedom to demonstrate and petition.

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Scores of people gathered in the capital’s Africa Unity Square to demonstrate against the country’s worsening economy in defiance of the ban, which was upheld by a court on Friday.

Supporters of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) sang songs condemning police brutality as officers fired teargas to disperse them.

Police also cornered a group of protesters and beat them with batons, with one women carried into a Red Cross ambulance.

“This is worse than during colonial times,” said a man who declined to be identified.

“We aren’t armed but the police just beat us while we were sitting on the street,” he told AFP.

Dozens of police and three water cannons were involved in running street battles with protesters in the square, which overlooks the country’s parliament and is where thousands gathered in November 2017 calling for Robert Mugabe to step down during a military-led coup.

Friday’s protests went ahead after opposition plans for large-scale marches were banned by police late on Thursday.

An MDC attempt to challenge the ban in court was then rejected.

“The court has said the demonstration should be off,” MDC spokesman Nkululeko Sibanda told AFP.

The party’s vice president Tendai Biti told reporters outside the high court that “we differ respectfully with the ruling”.

“The fascist regime has denied the right for Zimbabweans to demonstrate,” said Biti.

“There is no difference between Mnangagwa and Mugabe. We jumped from the frying pan into the fire after the November coup,” Biti told reporters outside the court.

Five million face ‘starvation

Emmerson Mnangagwa took over as president from long-time autocrat Mugabe and went on to win the disputed July 2018 elections, vowing to revive Zimbabwe’s economy.

But Zimbabweans say things have gone from bad to worse, with people facing shortages of basic goods and skyrocketing prices.

Around five million people – almost a third of the country’s 16 million population – are in need of aid and at least half of them are on the cusp of “starvation”, the World Food Programme (WFP) said this month.

Armed police had put up barricades across around the city early on Friday in a bid to deter protesters, turning back cars on streets leading to the MDC’s party headquarters.

Long queues of traffic formed as the police searched cars and commuter buses for weapons. Riot police also searched pedestrians.

At least six opposition and rights activists were abducted and tortured by unidentified assailants in the days leading up to the protest, according to the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 21 human rights groups.

Friday’s protests are the first since rallies in January against Mnangagwa’s decision to hike fuel prices that ended in deadly clashes with troops.

At least 17 people were killed and scores wounded after the army used force, including live ammunition, to end the demonstrations.

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In the aftermath of the last spate of deadly mass shootings, there was a little flutter among conservatives that maybe this is one of those times where they may need to throw the tiniest of common sense bones to the Democrats. With an assault weapons ban garnering 67 percent approval in Fox News polls, conservatives started to coalesce around the idea of “red flag” laws that would stymie certain at-risk individuals from purchasing an arsenal. The National Review talked about how it was the “right” idea and congressional sources started leaking that the policy would have bipartisan support. It is, literally, the least they could do after their thoughts and prayers failed to pan out.

Folks who’ve been down this road before could see it was coming. It was all a ruse to keep people occupied until Trump could leak that he wants to buy Greenland — probably because he doesn’t understand maps and actually thinks it’s bigger than Africa — and get everyone distracted from the largely avoidable crises that seem to strike every couple of weeks now. The media cycle approved grieving period behind us, right-wing objections to these laws are popping up everywhere declaring it unconstitutional to put any regulations upon gun ownership — even if that restriction is telling a psychopath with a published manifesto that they may not be right for an AR-15.

For anyone still clinging to the idea that “strict construction” or “textualism” are consistent judicial philosophies and not mealy-mouthed fig leaves for “the contemporary policy goals of the Republican Party” the violent erasure of “well-regulated” from the very text of the Second Amendment is the opening and closing argument against that fairy tale. The Originalists fare no better with the Federalist Papers making clear that the original public meaning of the right to bear arms was founded in states’ rights — the ability of states to maintain part-time, organized fighting forces supplied by citizens. With a straight face conservative judges have written that the original meaning of the Second Amendment could only be divined by ignoring every contemporaneous source and using clippings from almost a century after the fact. Meanwhile, none other than George Washington led an army while sitting as the president to go open a can of whoop-ass on people who thought they could stockpile weapons outside of the state militia system (they gave up instantly). Federalist 29 explicitly argues that these militias would be called together by the states to train “once or twice in the course of a year.” Hardly descriptions of an original public meaning that would embrace the status quo.

The problem with red flag laws and gun regulations generally is that they suffer from an effort to be entirely reasonable with an entirely unreasonable corporate lobby. Any piecemeal reform will get crushed under the decades of disingenuous gobbledygook that the Federalist Society’s judges have strung together. The only hope for breaking the logjam is a state to kick the wobbly chair holding up the current framework of gun legislation.

Some state should make it mandatory to join the National Guard — or an auxiliary to the Guard that would place it outside of federal activation if one believes that’s a sticking point — to possess a firearm.

It’s a well-regulated militia. The state setting red flag regulations or restrictions on what kind of guns are appropriate for the militia’s tasks would be entirely reasonable within the context of maintaining a functional militia. The armed forces can kick people out for committing crimes or having a mental illness that renders them a danger to the mission — so could this militia.

Those who want to own guns but who aren’t able to perform the martial tasks of a fighting force can be given administrative work. National Guard forces around the country need more people to deal with natural disasters and with an influx of bodies could see its mission expanded to other charitable causes. Whenever infrastructure becomes a project instead of a talking point, this new militia

It’s wild that this isn’t a more popular challenge to the current firearm regulation regime. It’s textual and originalist and gun supporters who object could, rightly, be called cowards for refusing to serve. Yet it’s only cropped up as a suggestion sporadically.

To any Democratic Party lawmaker sitting in a unified state government, draft this bill immediately. If Republicans can waste state resources on heartbeat bans just to go through the motions of ultimately futile constitutional litigation, why shouldn’t Democrats embrace litigation where they have the benefit of having the better of the textual argument? Especially with the NRA in potentially dire financial straits.

If John Roberts is correct that the greatest threat to his philosophical mission is the public perceiving the judiciary as merely partisan, force him to make more boldly partisan decisions. Letting him shield the Court by tossing reformist policies on technicalities and tenuous distinguishing logic is a losing game — make him say up is down and that text doesn’t mean text.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

LeClairRyan may have announced they’re closing their doors come August 30th, but that won’t guarantee an end to their legal troubles, especially not when new lawsuits keep popping up. The latest legal trouble is a suit filed August 9th by Capital Credits Group, which operates as the Enterprise Zone Company, alleging the firm failed to pay $97,886 in fees.

LeClairRyan had allegedly entered into a consulting agreement with Enterprise Zone Company whereby they’d pay the tax consultants for additional tax credits identified, as reported by Big Law Business:

According to the complaint, LeClairRyan entered into a tax consulting agreement with The Enterprise Zone Company in 2013, authorizing the consultant to identify and obtain tax benefits not claimed with the IRS and the State of California Franchise Tax Board.

LeClairRyan would pay the company 20% of the total amount of tax credits identified and provide it with copies of their ‘Enterprise Zone Deduction and Credit Summary’ for all of the years when tax credits were finalized, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, $416,026 in tax credits were identified for the Los Angeles office and an additional $73,407 for the San Francisco office, for a total of $97,886 in fees. Plaintiff alleges only a small fraction of the total owed has been paid thus far.

The firm has not yet made a comment about the lawsuit.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

We’ve had yet another incredibly slow season in terms of summer associate gossip. We suspect that one of the main reasons for that — on top of their fears of indebtedness and unemployment — is that summer associates were happily working in the hopes of earning HUGE paychecks after graduating from law school. Not all law firms boosted first-year associate salaries to $190K, but summers at those that were on their very best behavior.

Money makes the Biglaw world go ’round, and it also makes summer associates act like a bunch of little goody two-shoes. That being the case, you’d think that this summer’s offer rates would be absolutely awesome. But are they? Let’s find out which firms have handed out offers to 100 percent of their summers — information that rising 2Ls will want to know as on-campus interviewing season is already in progress or about to begin at many of the country’s most elite law schools.

While we know that many firms have already issued offers, some are still waiting until summer associates are back in school. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a peep about a 100 percent offer rate at a single law firm yet — not because it isn’t happening per se, but because we simply haven’t heard about it yet.

And what about the Biglaw firms that were hesitant to raise salaries in the first place but made the leap nonetheless? Was that pie-in-the-sky $190K starting salary a bit too high for firms to willingly make offers to entire summer classes? That’s a scary thought for those awaiting offers.

If you have offer rate information to share, please email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Summer Associate Offer Rates”), or text us (646-820-8477). We’ll keep you anonymous. If and when we receive enough information, we’ll do a follow-up story.

Thanks a bunch, and to those of you who have already landed offers, congratulations!

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Our posts on famed gaming giant Nintendo will likely give you the impression that the company has a very strange distaste for its own fans. Your brain will probably try to convince you that this doesn’t make any sense, since Nintendo fans are what makes Nintendo money. Your brain is wrong. Nintendo has demonstrated over and over again that if forced to choose between maximum control over its intellectual property and allowing fans to do fan-things, it will choose control every single time.

YouTube in particular tends to find itself in Nintendo’s crosshairs, what with the site being the natural place for fans of Nintendo to share Nintendo-y things with other fans. It’s worth noting again that, on matters of copyright at least, there’s really no reason why Nintendo must issue takedowns for anything that even barely could be seen as infringing on its IP. Such is the case with the recent spate of takedowns the company issued against a YouTube channel which had the singular purpose of celebrating Nintendo game music.

“Game over,” the YouTube channel GilvaSunner, which has over 300,000 subscribers, wrote on Twitter yesterday. They also shared a screenshot of an email inbox displaying dozens of copyright claims against videos of music ranging from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s “Hyrule Field” to “Mega Man 2 Medley” from Super Smash Bros. 3DS.

This morning, GilvaSunner shared another bevy of copyright claims, this time against videos featuring music from Fire Emblem: Awakening. “115 videos in total blocked so far,” GilvaSunner wrote. “They started manually with the most viewed content on the channel, and are now going through the playlists one by one I guess.”

Here’s where the lack of sense in these protectionist actions really shines through. Nintendo makes money by having dedicated fans purchase Nintendo consoles and games for its systems. Fans become dedicated through their love of a game and the nostalgia they might have for a particular property. The soundtracks of games can play a huge part in that, of course. In other words, YouTube posts of Nintendo music, while technically infringing, mostly function to supercharge the fandom of Nintendo properties.

Which is why so many gaming companies do nothing to impede this expression of fandom. And Nintendo doesn’t have to either. It can, certainly, and it has, but it doesn’t have to. It only does so because the company appears to view protectionism as some kind of default setting.

Why? Because, while fans love Nintendo, Nintendo doesn’t share that same love for its fans.

Nintendo Hates You: Company DMCAs Over 100 Videos Celebrating Nintendo Game Music

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Lawyers Who Sued YouTube For Anti-Conservative Bias Are Suing YouTube Again… For Anti-LGBTQ Bias
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“We note with regret that six people so far were abducted by suspected state agents in the evening of 13 and 14 August 2019, and they have been severely tortured and left for dead,” said a statement released by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a coalition of 21 human rights groups.

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) plans to launch protests marches on Friday against the worsening economy, defying government threats to stop them.

If they go ahead, the protests will be the first since rallies in January against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s decision to hike fuel prices that ended in deadly clashes with troops.

The MDC has blamed the government for the abductions this week, saying they follow a familiar pattern of a government under pressure.

MDC youth leader Obey Sithole told a press conference Wednesday that after the party said it was organising protest actions, the government went into “panic” and “some of the tactics they are employing are to abduct people”.

In an apparent rebuttal of the accusations, government spokesman Nick Mangwana said it “noted with concern and distress reports of alleged abductions and torture of citizens by unknown assailants.

“These allegations and any other will be professionally investigated to their final conclusion and the outcomes shared with the public,” Mangwana said.

He charged that there were “discharged and disgruntled former members of the old establishment” who were trying to “impair President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s image as a reformer”.

Reports of the abductions come as the new administration has prioritised normalising relations with western governments following two decades of isolation over alleged human rights abuses.

The US and British governments have expressed concern.

“Harassment and intimidation have no place in a democratic and pluralistic society,” the US embassy in Harare tweeted.

Britain the former colonial master urged the government “to uphold the constitution, ensure these incidents don’t continue and hold those responsible to account.”

The opposition has vowed to go ahead with its protests, as millions are hit by a shortage of basic goods and skyrocketing prices, according to the UN food agency.

Around five million people, or a third of the 16 million Zimbabweans, are in need of aid and at least half of them are on the cusp of “starvation”, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on August 6.

Post published in: Featured

Nationwide demonstrations erupted in January following a crippling strike over an increase in the price of fuel

Zimbabwe’s main opposition group has called off anti-government protests in the capital Harare at the last minute, after failing to overturn a police ban.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) took the decision after a judge upheld the ban on Friday morning.

A party official said there would be protests in other cities next week.

The demonstration was called in protest at the government’s handling of the economy, but police said they had evidence it could turn violent.

About five million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid, according to the UN.

The BBC’s Shingai Nyoka in Harare said there was a heavy police presence where the march had been due to begin, and the city centre was subdued, with most shops closed.

A crowd which had gathered in central Harare before the MDC decision was dispersed by police, The Herald newspaper said.

Life ‘worse than under Mugabe’

The demonstrations were called to protest at Zimbabwe’s worsening economic situation. Power cuts last for 18 hours a day and inflation is on the rise.

“Life in Zimbabwe today is worse that it was under Robert Mugabe,” MDC politician Fadzayi Mahere told the BBC.

“People are marching against the continued hardship that they face. The cost of living has soared exponentially. We’re back into hyperinflation.”

She said that democratic freedoms were also under threat.

Earlier this week, at least six civil society and opposition members were allegedly abducted and tortured.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum says the victims were accused of mobilising people to demonstrate.

Human rights groups blame state agents for their disappearance, but the authorities have denied their involvement.

The UK and US have expressed concerns about the reports.

What’s the background?

The protests would have been the first since rallies against fuel price increases in January led to deadly clashes with troops, in which 12 people were killed.

Roads were barricaded by protesters in demonstrations over high fuel prices in January

The worsening economy has fuelled wider grievances with the governing Zanu-PF party under President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mr Mnangagwa swept to power in November 2017 after long-time leader Robert Mugabe was ousted in a military coup.

Image copyrightEPAPresident Mnangagwa is trying to resuscitate the struggling economy

Mr Mnangagwa, a long-time ally of Mr Mugabe, won an election in July 2018. On the campaign trail, he promised democratic reforms and economic recovery after years of decline under Mr Mugabe.

But the mood of hope and change has diminished as Zimbabwe’s economy has faltered.

Inflation is at a 10-year high, shrinking Zimbabweans’ salaries and pensions. Shortages of fuel, power and water are widespread, and the price of bread has increased five-fold since April.

Opposition groups say the president is failing to live up to his promises following his election in disputed polls.

There have been fears, however, that protests in Harare and other major cities would lead to another police crackdown akin to January’s.

Post published in: Featured