Category Archives: Illegal Immigration

What is Life in Aleppo After Siege is Broken?

Posted on by

Aleppo is an ancient metropolis, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; it has been inhabited since perhaps as early as the 6th millennium BC. The city’s significance in history has been its location at one end of the Silk Road, which passed through central Asia and Mesopotamia. When the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869, trade was diverted to sea and Aleppo began its slow decline. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Aleppo ceded its northern hinterland to modern Turkey, as well as the important railway connecting it to Mosul.

 

Rebel fighters break siege in southern Aleppo, sources say

But little has changed for the besieged residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo neighborhoods, who have been enduring acute shortages of food and medicine, as the fighting remains too fierce for aid to be delivered, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and humanitarian workers operating in the area say.
 
Syrian state news agency SANA says that the rebels have not broken the siege of the city’s eastern neighborhoods. The agency reports that government troops had inflicted “heavy losses” on rebel groups in the fighting raging in the south and southwest of the city. More here from CNN.

Video here.

Aleppo Siege Broken 

A coalition of Rebel Forces Has broken the siege of Aleppo according to reports Rebels say they have breached the siege imposed by the Syrian government on opposition neighbourhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, in a major military breakthrough after intense fighting.

The Syrian Regime seized the only route into rebel-held areas in northern Aleppo last month, prompting a rebel counteroffensive from the city’s south.

Clashes Reported In Aleppo

A monitoring group reported sporadic clashes in Aleppo on August 7, a day after Syrian opposition fighters said they broke a three-week government siege of the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that a road opened to the south of Aleppo was too dangerous for civilians to use, and that intermittent clashes and air strikes were taking place.

First food delivery into east Aleppo after rebels break siege

Doctors at the Omar bin Abdulaziz hospital told the Telegraph patients and staff took cover in the basement for most of night. “Everyone is staying in the safest room,” said Dr Fatima AlMousalem, whose hospital has been targeted several times in recent weeks. “We expected this bloody attack from the Assad regime.

Syrian rebels vow to take Aleppo after breaking siege – FT.com

Syrian opposition fighters vowed to capture all of Aleppo after breaking a weeks-long siege of the northern city that has become a critical battleground of the country’s five-year civil war. Fierce battles raged in several parts of Aleppo, Syria’s

Military success in Syria gives Putin upper hand

Washington: The Syrian military was foundering last year, with thousands of rebel fighters pushing into areas of the country long considered to be government strongholds. The rebel offensive was aided by powerful tank-destroying missiles supplied by the CIA and Saudi Arabia. Intelligence assessments circulated in Washington that the Syrian president, Bashar Al Assad, was losing his grip on power.

Daesh destroys ancient treasures in Syria’s Tal Ajaja

Tal Ajaja: When Daesh captured Tal Ajaja, one of Syria’s most important Assyrian-era sites, they discovered previously unknown millennia-old statues and cuneiform tablets, and then they destroyed them. The terrorist group, which has ravaged archeological sites under its control in Syria and Iraq, was chased from Tal Ajaja in northeastern Hasakeh province in February by Kurdish fighters.

Syria’s war: Deaths as air strikes hit Idlib hospital

At least 10 people, including three children and four women, have been killed in air strikes on a hospital in northwestern Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province. Al Jazeera’s Adham Abu Hossam, reporting from the site of the attack in Meles, a town about 15km from Idlib city, said Saturday’s raids had also left many in critical condition.

Syrian refugees settling in US at a faster clip

When Ajwad Al Zoubi, a tall, stocky man who for years drove trucks across the Middle East, saw the emailed photo of his beloved home with the bountiful orange trees burned to the ground, he turned into a pool of tears. They come suddenly, even now, when he talks about it.

Syrian refugees design app for navigating German bureaucracy

Munzer Khattab likens German bureaucracy to a game of snakes and ladders. When the 23-year-old from Latakia on the Syrian coast arrived and registered in Berlin last year, he was given the address of a job centre in another part of the city. But when he turned up at the address, the building was shut for renovation.

UK unlikely to reach target of resettling 20,000 Syrian refugees

There is scant evidence that Britain would reach the target set by David Cameron last year of resettling 20,000 Syrian refugees in the country by 2020, MPs have said in a damaging report which calls the response to the refugee crisis of 2015-16 a “Europe-wide failure”.

Adele snubs Glasto LP to fundraise for refugees and murdered MP

Adele was the star performer at the Glastonbury Festival this year But she has declined to offer a song from her set to a new charity album All profits generated will be split between Oxfam and the Jo Cox Fund Adele was the undisputed queen of this year’s Glastonbury festival and her show-stopping performance propelled her latest album back to the top of the charts.

Syrian refugee swimmer wins heat, won’t advance in butterfly | Fox News

Swimmer Yusra Mardini, who survived a harrowing sea crossing a year ago and is now among 10 refugees competing under the Olympic flag in Rio, won her preliminary heat in the 100-meter butterfly Saturday. But the result wasn’t enough to advance her to the semifinals.

Who in Govt is Whistleblowing on Immigration/Asylum Detention?

Posted on by
This event was hosted by Jones Day Law firm in Washington DC. The policies currently being applied by DHS, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol have officially been challenged as noted in this video of the The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and Human Rights First hosted a discussion on removal and detention of refugees seeking asylum in the U.S.

See the video here. While the session was almost 4 hours, please take the time to listen to the first two panelists…that will explain their mission and the links below. Moving forward, you will be able to better understand Barack Obama’s presentation next month at the United Nations, Jeh Johnson’s position and that of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Note that at no time is there a discussion about creating conditions by which globally migrants, refugees, asylum seekers would not have to leave their home countries in the first place.

Note also that the real human rights violations are happening in home countries yet no country leadership be it Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Syria, Iraq or Sudan has been brought before any tribunal for violations or war crimes.

2015 Annual Report

Click here to view USCIRF’s 2015 Annual Report

Click here to view USCIRF’s 2015 Annual Report Transmission Letters

2015 Annual Report Introduction

2015 Annual Report Overview

2015 Annual Report Prisoner Lists

It is a division of the State Department called United States Commission on International Religious FreedomUnited States Commission on International Religious Freedom

The Office of International Religious Freedom has the mission of promoting religious freedom as a core objective of U.S. foreign policy. The office is headed by the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, David N. Saperstein. We monitor religious persecution and discrimination worldwide, recommend and implement policies in respective regions or countries, and develop programs to promote religious freedom.

Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:

  • Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries;
  • Assist emerging democracies in implementing freedom of religion and conscience;
  • Assist religious and human rights NGOs in promoting religious freedom;
  • Identify and denounce regimes that are severe persecutors on the basis of religious belief.

The office carries out its mission through:

  • The Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. The report contains an introduction, executive summary, and a chapter describing the status of religious freedom in each of 195 countries throughout the world. Mandated by, and presented to, the U.S. Congress, the report is a public document available online and in book form from the U.S. Government Printing Office.
  • The designation by the Secretary of State (under authority delegated by the President) of nations guilty of particularly severe violations of religious freedom as “Countries of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (H.R. 2431) and its amendment of 1999 (Public Law 106-55). Nations so designated are subject to further actions, including economic sanctions, by the United States.
  • Meetings with foreign government officials at all levels, as well as religious and human rights groups in the United States and abroad, to address problems of religious freedom.
  • Testimony before the United States Congress on issues of international religious freedom.
  • Close cooperation with the independent United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
  • Sponsorship of reconciliation programs in disputes which divide groups along lines of religious identity. The office seeks to support NGOs that are promoting reconciliation in such disputes.
  • Programs of outreach to American religious communities.

Refugee Resettlement Agency Courtesy of Clinton/Obama Appointees

Posted on by

Revolving Door Sends Millions to Refugee Resettlement Agency Run by Former Clinton and Obama Appointees

A revolving door in the Democratic administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama has sent millions of dollars in federal funding to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants [USCRI], which is led by two former directors of the Office of Refugee Resettlement [ORR], the federal office that selects the voluntary agencies [VOLAGs] who get lucrative federal contracts to resettle refugees.

Breitbart: President Bill Clinton appointed Lavinia Limon as director of ORR in 1993, a position she held until the end of his administration. After a brief interlude at the Center for New American Communities, a project of the left-leaning National Immigration Forum, Limon was named executive director of USCRI in August 2001, a position she still holds.

In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Eskinder Negash, an Eritrean refugee on Limon’s USCRI staff, as director of ORR. When Negash resigned abruptly in December 2014, he went back to USCRI, where he now serves as Vice President of Global Development.

Revenues at USCRI, his once and future employer,  increased significantly while Negash served as director of the ORR. In FY 2006, USCRI revenues were $19 million. By 2015, they had grown to $50 million, more than 90 percent of which came from “government grants.”

ORR’s budget grew from $492 million in FY 2006 to $1.5 billion in 2014.

During his tenure at ORR, Negash’s performance was spotty at best, particularly with regards to his failure to provide Congress with the statutorily required annual reports in a timely manner. As Ann Corcoran wrote at Refugee Resettlement Watch back in 2012, three years after Negash’s arrival:

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is in complete disarray as regards its legally mandated requirement to report to Congress every year on how refugees are doing and where the millions of tax dollars are going that run the program. The last (and most recent) annual report to be sent to Congress is the 2008 report—so they are out of compliance for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011. . . (The lack of reports for recent years signals either bureaucratic incompetence and disregard for the law, or, causes one to wonder if there is something ORR is hiding.)

To replace Negash as director of ORR, Obama selected another VOLAG executive, Bob Carey, Vice President of Resettlement and Migration Policy at the International Rescue Committee and “chair of Refugee Council USA, a coalition of NGOs working on issues affecting refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons, victims of trafficking and victims of torture,” the Resettlement Industry’s Lobbying Group.

The twenty members of Refugee Council USA include all of the top VOLAGs whose main source of revenue comes from ORR grants, including Church World Service/Immigration and Refugee Program, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Ethiopian Community Development Council, HIAS, International Catholic Migration Commission, International Rescue Committee, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migration & Refugee Services, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and World Relief.

Now the same lobbying group that Carey once chaired, Refugees Council USA, recently announced it wants to more than double the number of refugees allowed in to the United States in 2017—to 200,000, from approximately 70,000 in FY 2015 and an Obama administration “targeted level” of 85,000 in FY 2016, with much of the increase driven by the hasty push to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees this year.

The budget impact of such an increase would be enormous, possibly doubling ORR expenditures from $1.5 billion in FY 2014 to $3 billion or more in FY 2017.

The International Rescue Committee, whose CEO is the former United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Miliband, had  worldwide revenues in 2015 of  $691 million, a $138 million increase from its $563 million revenues in 2014.

Most of that revenue (82 percent in 2015—or $572 million) came from “grants and contracts,” most from governments and related agencies around the world, including the federal government of the United States.

Related reading: Kerry: US to accept 85,000 refugees in 2016, 100,000 in 2017

In contrast to the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations, George W. Bush’s two appointed directors of ORR, Nguyen Van Nah and Martha E. Newton, did not participate in the revolving door back to lucrative employment at the VOLAGs they oversaw after they left ORR.

Van Nah, director from 2001 to 2006, became a professor of economics at Sacramento State University in California when he left ORR.

Newton, who succeeded Van Nah, went from ORR to become a consultant at her own firm, Health Strategies LLC.

Democratic appointees Limon, Negash, and Carey have worked tirelessly to expand both the budget of ORR and the party’s far-left, pro-refugee agenda.

It was during Limon’s tenure that the “Wilson Fish alternative program”was used as justification, without the corresponding statutory authority, to hire VOLAGS to operate resettlement programs in states that withdrew from the federal program. The enabling legislation made no mention of such a provision, but Limon and her colleagues pushed it through the HHS regulatory process without much public fanfare.

Related reading: Clinton Says Taking in Refugees Is ‘Who We Are as Americans’

Currently, several USCRI operations–in Twin Falls, Idaho and Lowell, Massachusetts, for instance–are funded by ORR through this statutorily questionable Wilson Fish alternative program mechanism.

It was also during Limon’s tenure at ORR that the mix of nations of origin for refugees shifted dramatically.

In 1992, the year before Limon was named ORR director, the Near East Asia countries of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, and the African countries of Angola, Burundi, Congo, Ethiopia,Liberia, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda —many of them majority Muslim—accounted for only nine percent of all resettled refugees.

But by 2001, Limon’s last year at the helm of ORR, these African and and Near East Asia countries accounted for 46 percent of all resettled refugees.

Operationally, USCRI has had its share of problems under Limon’s leadership.

In 2008, before Negash was named ORR director, USCRI’s Waterbury, Connecticut field office had its resettlement contract there canceled:

The State Department has canceled its contract with the agency responsible for resettling 64 Burmese refugees to Waterbury. In response, Connecticut’s congressional delegation has sent a letter of protest to the state department, asking it to give the International Institute of Connecticut more time to settle its problems.

This follows months of reports of poor housing, fractious relationships with volunteers, missed immunizations for students and insufficient assistance with daily tasks. The State Department brought the refugees here to escape the tyranny in their native Myanmar.

“I’ve heard of agencies being under investigation and there being a threat of canceling a contract, but this is the first time I’ve known about a particular case being canceled,” said Stephanie J. Nawyn, a sociologist at Michigan State University who studies resettlement. “I do think this is unusual.”

In Lowell, Massachusetts last month, a 13-year-old girl was allegedly sexually harassed by a recently arrived Syrian refugee:

A 22-year-old Syrian refugee is behind bars after only two months in the United States after he was accused Thursday night of inappropriately touching a 13-year-old girl at a state-run swimming pool in Lowell.

In Twin Falls, Idaho, USCRI’s local subcontractor, the College of Southern Idaho, is dealing with a national controversy involving three refugees and the sexual assault of a five-year-old girl.

Chobani Yogurt, the company that owns and operates the largest yogurt manufacturing facility in the world in Twin Falls, thanks in part to $54 million in federal and state grants, relies heavily on refugees brought in by USCRI and the College of Southern Idaho as employees. In 2015, CNN reported that 600 of the company’s 2,000 employees are refugees.

Even the far-left Michelle Goldberg, reporting at Slate, concedes, “There had been an incident involving three boys, ages 7, 10, and 14, and a mentally disabled 5-year-old girl [in Twin Falls].”

[Twin Falls county prosecutor Grant] Loebs described it to me as a “very serious felony.” On June 2, an 89-year-old neighbor discovered the children in the laundry room at the Fawnbrook Apartments, a low-income housing complex. The youngest boy is from Iraq while the older ones, brothers, are from an Eritrean family that passed through Sudanese refugee camps. (Most news reports have identified the older boys as Sudanese.) Only the youngest boy, Loebs said, is alleged to have touched the girl, though investigators suspect the 10-year-old might have as well; the elder boys reportedly made a video.

Because everyone involved in the case is a minor, the records were sealed. Nevertheless, on the evening of June 20, Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury appeared at the weekly City Council meeting to update the anxious public as best he could. He announced that police had arrested the two older boys the previous Friday and that they were being held in juvenile detention. (Loebs later told me that the 7-year-old was also charged with a felony but wasn’t taken into custody because of his age.)

Despite these operational problems, Limon’s hold on the reins of USCRI appears to be secure.

Her job security, as well as her status within the politically powerful refugee resettlement industry, is undoubtedly enhanced by her ties with the Clinton and Obama administrations, which run long and deep.

In 2015, Limon attended an event sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative, where she served on the same panel as Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder and CEO of Chobani Yogurt.

Limon appears to have done well from her life time career advancing refugee rights.

A 1972 graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, with a degree in sociology, Limon served as director of the International Institute of Los Angeles prior to being picked by Bill Clinton to head up the ORR in 1993.

In 2012, the last year for which such data is readily available, Limon received over $289,000 in compensation for her job as executive director of USCRI.

Peter Limon, who appears to be Limon’s brother, is also employed by USCRI as director of Business Development.

Given the Debt, Venezuela is out of Money

Posted on by

How bad is it? Hey Bernie, Hillary….what say you? Could there be yet another insurgency coming into the United States of refugees?

A new decree issued by the Venezuelan government that forces workers to take agricultural jobs has been denounced as “forced labor” by human rights organizations and unions.

The Nicolás Maduro administration made the controversial regulation public on July 22, saying it was an attempt to curb the country’s widespread shortages of food.

The decree said the Venezuelan government, through the Labor Ministry, can arbitrarily force public and private companies to “lend” them  employees for farm work.

In a statement on July 29, Amnesty International called the new system “forced labor.” More here.

 

Venezuelans carrying groceries cross the Simon Bolivar bridge from Cucuta in Colombia back to San Antonio de Tachira in Venezuela, on July 17, 2016 (AFP Photo/George Castellanos)

Fleeing the country

Bogota (AFP) – Venezuela’s economic crisis has sent a huge but largely ignored wave of people into Colombia, and many more could be on the way, a senior UN refugee official said.

“It’s a silent arrival of a lot of people who are crossing the border and staying illegally on the Colombian side,” said Martin Gottwald, the United Nations Refugee Agency’s representative in Colombia.

No exact figures are available, but the number of Venezuelans fleeing to Colombia is already “quite large,” and Colombia should prepare itself for more, Gottwald told AFP in an interview.

“The avalanche is probably going to increase, with or without the reopening of the border,” he said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro closed the countries’ border in August 2015 after an attack on an army patrol. He blamed right-wing paramilitaries from Colombia.

The leftist leader briefly reopened it last weekend to allow Venezuelans to stock up on food, medicine and other basic supplies amid severe shortages in Venezuela.

Gottwald said a sizeable number of Venezuelans who entered Colombia probably never returned.

Venezuela’s cash could run out ‘within a year’

Venezuela is running out of money and time.

CNN: The country’s central bank only has $11.9 billion in reserves, down sharply from $30 billion in 2011. A few large debt payments are coming due soon. Starting in October, Venezuela owes a total of $4.7 billion in a series of payments.

Venezuela is in the midst of a deep economic, political and humanitarian crisis. Its citizens are suffering from massive food shortages and hospitals lack basic medicine and equipment. Experts say Venezuela has prioritized paying the debt over dealing with the shortages.

“Within a year they’re going to run out of money,” says Russ Dallen, an expert on Venezuela’s debt and managing partner at Caracas Capital, an investing firm in Miami. Dallen pointed out that the country has been almost “suicidal” in its focus on making debt payments.

Related: Venezuela is selling oil for food to Jamaica

Experts’ guesses vary over exactly how much time Venezuela has before it runs out of cash. But all agree that at this rate, Venezuela does not have enough reserves to make all its payments for the next two years.

Much of Venezuela’s reserves are in gold, some of which the country has shipped to Switzerland this year to help repay its debts. As of May, Venezuela had $7.4 billion of its reserves in gold. However, it sent more gold in June, Swiss data shows.

“It doesn’t seem that Venezuela is going to be able to make all payments for next year,” says Mauro Roca, a Latin American economist at Goldman Sachs (GS). “The probability for default is much higher for next year than this year.”

Related: What went wrong in Venezuela

It is a dire situation and ironic for a country that sits on the world’s largest oil reserves. It’s true that oil prices have dropped dramatically and Venezuela hasn’t been able to earn enough money for its oil. But whatever money Venezuela earns from its oil is going to pay down its debts to lenders like China, bondholders, oil drilling companies and importers.

Even oil drilling companies are starting to cut business in Venezuela. For instance, in April, Schlumberger said it would reduce operations in Venezuela due to unpaid bills. It’s also one of the key reasons why the country’s oil production has plunged to 13-year lows.

Related: Why Venezuela’s oil production plunged to a 13-year low

According to Bank of America (BAC), Venezuela’s imports — which include food and medicine — declined between 40% and 45% in the first five months this year compared to the same time a year ago. (There isn’t reliable government data on imports).

“It’s a dramatic cut…they’re making a big effort to pay the debt,” says Sebastian Rondeau, an economist at Bank of America. He estimates that Venezuela can make debt payments until April of next year. “Then the second half of next year is going to be very complicated.”

There is still a chance that Venezuela could default this year. Venezuelan officials are currently working with bondholders of the country’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, to exchange short-term debt, which is due in October and November, with longer-term debt. If bondholders don’t agree, it could be a problem.

“It would just kick the can further down the road…we still think the government is highly likely to default over the next two years, if not in the next six months,” says Edward Glossop, an economist at Capital Economics, a research firm.

But China may be coming to Venezuela’s rescue. China is reportedly in talks to give Venezuela a one-year grace period on repaying its debt and only make interest payments. Since 2007, China has loaned Venezuela $65 billion and Venezuela has been slowly repaying that via oil shipments.

Last year, Venezuela shipped 579,000 barrels of oil per day on average to China, an audited financial statement from the country’s oil company shows. It appears China may now cut Venezuela some slack, so it can sell oil to bring in some money.

Regardless of a new debt deal or temporary relief from China, experts say Venezuela’s current path isn’t sustainable.

“It’s like saying how long can you hold your breath under water?” says Dallen.

The Pen and Phone Just Commuted Another 214 Criminals

Posted on by

Obama Commutes Sentences For 214 Federal Prisoners

President Obama on Wednesday cut short the sentences of 214 federal inmates, including 67 life sentences, in what the White House called the largest batch of commutations on a single day in more than a century.

Almost all the prisoners were serving time for nonviolent crimes related to cocaine, methamphetamine or other drugs, although a few were charged with firearms violations related to their drug activities. Almost all are men, though they represent a diverse cross-section of America geographically.

Obama’s push to lessen the burden on nonviolent drug offenders reflects his long-stated view that the U.S. needs to remedy the consequences of decades of onerous sentencing requirements that put tens of thousands behind bars for far too long. Obama has used the aggressive pace of his commutations to increase pressure on Congress to pass a broader fix and to call more attention to the issue.

All told, Obama has commuted 562 sentences during his presidency — more than the past nine presidents combined, the White House said. Almost 200 of those who have benefited were serving life sentences.

*****

FNC: “We are not done yet,” Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said. “We expect that many more men and women will be given a second chance through the clemency initiative.”

Most of those receiving commutations Wednesday will be released December 1.

Though there’s broad bipartisan support for a criminal justice overhaul, what had looked like a promising legislative opportunity for Obama’s final year has mostly fizzled. As with Obama’s other priorities, the intensely political climate of the presidential election year has confounded efforts by Republicans and Democratic in Congress to find consensus.

Obama has long called for phasing out strict sentences for drug offenses, arguing they lead to excessive punishment and incarceration rates unseen in other developed countries. With Obama’s support, the Justice Department in recent years has directed prosecutors to rein in the use of harsh mandatory minimums.

The Obama administration has also expanded criteria for inmates applying for clemency, prioritizing nonviolent offenders who have behaved well in prison, aren’t closely tied to gangs and would have received shorter sentences if they had been convicted a few years later.

Civil liberties groups praised that policy change but have pushed the Obama administration to grant commutations at a faster pace. The Clemency Resource Center, part of NYU School of Law, said more than 11,000 petitions are pending at the Justice Department and that the group believes 1,500 of them meet the administration’s criteria to be granted.

But the calls for greater clemency have sometimes sparked accusations from Obama’s opponents that he’s too soft on crime, an argument that is particularly resonant this year as presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton trade claims about who is best positioned to keep the country safe.

“Many people will use words today like leniency and mercy,” said Kevin Ring of the group Families Against Mandatory Minimums. “But what really happened is that a group of fellow citizens finally got the punishment they deserved. Not less, but at long last, not more.”