#court penal international

[knario47]

SANTO DOMINGO

Antonio Guerra, genealogista, dice que el 50 por ciento de los apellidos dominicanos proceden de Islas Canarias

Sostiene que a partir de 1685 los españoles comenzaron a reforzar la presencia de españoles, y en particular canarios, en Santo Domingo.

Aproximadamente un 50 por ciento de los apellidos dominicanos proceden de las islas Canarias, en España, que a su vez tienen origen en apellidos portugueses, porque la despoblación de la parte oriental de la isla Española se mantuvo debido a políticas y debilidades de la metrópolis, y a que los franceses estaban impulsando la presencia de muchos ciudadanos suyos en el Santo Domingo Español.

La versión es ofrecida por el genealogista Antonio Guerra, ingeniero, quien sostiene que a partir de 1685 los españoles comenzaron a reforzar la presencia de españoles, y en particular canarios, en Santo Domingo.

Sostuvo que ciertamente hubo negros y descendientes de esclavos que también asumieron los apellidos de sus propietarios, pero el Santo Domingo Español siempre tuvo una “esclavitud muy mansa”, y no hubo rebeliones y conflictos mayores como los ocurridos en la parte occidental de la isla, Haití.

Explicó que los registros oficiales de los actos del Estado Civil, como bodas, defunciones, bautizos, entre otros, se iniciaron en la isla en 1580, y que el el padre de la genealogía dominicana fue Carlos Larrazabal Blanco, autor del libro de 9 tomos sobre las familias dominicanas.

Explicó que la genealogía siempre ha servido, desde la Biblia, para orientar a las familias sobre sus orígenes, y que una de las primeras descripciones genealógicas es la de Jesús de Nazaret. Explicó que los judíos tienen una fuerte tradición de registrar su ascendencia, de la misma forma que lo hacen los miembros de la Iglesia de los Santos de los Últimos Días, Mormones.

Dijo que haciendo una retrospectiva hacia atrás, cada persona tiene aproximadamente 2 millones 200 mil abuelos, contados hasta 1492, cuando ocurre la llegada de los españoles a la isla. Explica que son por lo menos 25 generaciones.

Recomendó que los dominicanos valoremos y apoyemos instituciones como el Archivo General de la Nación, que tiene los libros del Estado Civil, que está digitalizando casi toda su documentación para conservarla, y que tiene los protocolos notariales que se han realizado, en diferentes épocas en la República Dominicana.

Antonio Guerra, que es ingeniero y fue 10 años presidente del Patronato del Archivo General de la Nación, fue entrevistado por el periodista Fausto Rosario Adames, en su programa ¿Y tú…qué dices?, que se transmite cada día a través del canal de televisión AcentoTV

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[b0ringasfuck]

"È antisemitismo" ormai suona credibile come "specchio riflesso".

A furia di gridare al lupo al lupo...

[marcogiovenale]

intimidazioni alla cpi e continuazione dei crimini di israele contro la popolazione palestinese: un articolo su globalproject

Intimidazioni alla CPI e continuazione dei crimini di israele contro la Popolazione Palestinese: un articolo su GlobalProject Solo un frammento (ma è importantissimo leggere l’intero articolo) da La guerra totale di Israele contro la giustizia e la solidarietà internazionale (Elisa Brunelli su GlobalProject, 2 giugno 2024): […] Da quando l’ICJ ha emesso la sentenza, in soli tre mesi Israele ha…

[dr-amer]

العراقيل القانونية التي تحول دون ممارسة المحكمة الجنائية الدولية لصلاحياتها القضائية في مواجهة الجرائم الإسرائيلية المرتكبة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة

العراقيل القانونية التي تحول دون ممارسة المحكمة الجنائية الدولية لصلاحياتها القضائية في مواجهة الجرائم الإسرائيلية المرتكبة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة   العراقيل القانونية التي تحول دون ممارسة المحكمة الجنائية الدولية لصلاحياتها القضائية في مواجهة الجرائم الإسرائيلية المرتكبة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة الكاتب : Tararbit Rachida Summary : The effectiveness and usefulness of the international…

[alewaanewspaper1960]

العراقيل القانونية التي تحول دون ممارسة المحكمة الجنائية الدولية لصلاحياتها القضائية في مواجهة الجرائم الإسرائيلية المرتكبة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة

العراقيل القانونية التي تحول دون ممارسة المحكمة الجنائية الدولية لصلاحياتها القضائية في مواجهة الجرائم الإسرائيلية المرتكبة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة   العراقيل القانونية التي تحول دون ممارسة المحكمة الجنائية الدولية لصلاحياتها القضائية في مواجهة الجرائم الإسرائيلية المرتكبة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة الكاتب : Tararbit Rachida Summary : The effectiveness and usefulness of the international…

[b0ringasfuck]

Perchè dei crimini di guerra a chi comanda non glie ne frega un cazzo.

Né quando li commettono né commessi a danno del proprio paese.

Spesso non è nemmeno importante vincere. Spesso è proprio la classe dirigente che commette i peggiori crimini ai danni del proprio paese.

Perchè non sarebbe la prima volta che un paese perde una guerra ma la sua classe dirigente rimane al suo posto.

L'Italia ne è un esempio.

Perchè bisogna distinguere tra classe politica, che in parte cambiò nel paese, e classe dirigente (i ricchi). Infatti ci ritroviamo tra i coglioni i nipotini dei fasci.

Ormai la classe politica dei paesi occidentali è quasi completamente cooptata dalla sua classe dirigente che ha tutto l'interesse a piallare gli ideali di uguaglianza e pari opportunità. Non sorprende che usi il diritto internazionale à la carte, così come usa la "libertà di espressione" per dar voce ai fascisti.

Corte penale, l’autogol di Kiev e il doppio standard del diritto

Luigi Daniele

Ucraina/Russia. Zelenksy chiede l’adesione allo Statuto di Roma ma invoca l’articolo 124: nessuna indagine nei prossimi sette anni. A restare fuori, però, non sarebbero solo eventuali crimini ucraini: “via libera” anche a quelli russi commessi sul territorio del paese invaso. Torna l’idea di regole internazionali à la carte, buone solo quando servono contro i nemici

Nel 1945 il giudice che avrebbe servito come procuratore capo americano a Norimberga, Robert Jackson, criticando i profili di «giustizia dei vincitori» che le giurisdizioni penali internazionali avrebbero mantenuto da allora per molti decenni, dichiarò alla Conferenza di Londra: «Non possiamo codificare norme penali contro gli altri che non saremmo disposti a vedere invocate contro di noi».

Sembra questa, al contrario, la scelta del governo Zelensky, che ha ottenuto ieri dalla Verchovna Rada l’approvazione della propria proposta di legge di ratifica dello Statuto di Roma della Corte penale internazionale (Cpi). La legge contiene l’invocazione dell’articolo 124 dello Statuto, che stabilisce che «uno Stato che diviene parte al presente Statuto può, nei sette anni successivi all’entrata in vigore dello Statuto nei suoi confronti, dichiarare di non accettare la competenza della Corte per quanto riguarda la categoria di reati di cui all’articolo 8 quando sia allegato che un reato è stato commesso sul suo territorio o da suoi cittadini».

LA PROCURA della Cpi, giova ricordarlo, dal 2022 ha considerato la situazione in Ucraina una priorità assoluta, stanziando la più alta cifra del proprio budget (4,5 miliardi di euro) per le indagini, assegnandovi 42 investigatori, organizzando numerose visite in situ del procuratore e aprendo un country office nel paese. Un paese, però, che non aveva mai ratificato lo Statuto, essendosi limitato a una dichiarazione ad hoc di accettazione della giurisdizione della Corte sul proprio territorio e sui propri cittadini nel 2014 e nel 2015 (una sorta di invocazione di intervento della Cpi consentita anche agli stati che non ratificano il suo trattato istitutivo).

L’Ucraina si è trovata nella singolare posizione di essere al vertice delle priorità della Corte, pur non essendo uno Stato parte. La richiesta di aderire al sistema Cpi ridimensiona questa anomalia, aggiungendone però una ancor più stridente: l’invocazione della clausola dell’articolo 124, ovvero una richiesta di temporanea immunità per crimini internazionali eventualmente commessi da propri cittadini o, problematicamente, sul proprio territorio.

Relitto dei compromessi del 1998, anno in cui lo Statuto istitutivo della Corte fu approvato, l’introduzione dell’articolo 124 fu voluta dalla Francia, che minacciava di non firmare se non fosse stata inserita questa clausola, funzionale a tenere il proprio territorio e i propri cittadini «al riparo» dalla giurisdizione della Corte per sette anni dall’adesione.

L’articolo 124 apparì subito così contrario allo spirito dello Statuto che fu immediatamente destinato (come specificato nell’articolo stesso) a essere emendato nella prima conferenza di revisione del trattato. Nel 2015, quindi, l’Assemblea degli stati parte ha approvato un emendamento di cancellazione dell’articolo, che entrerà in vigore se sostenuto dai sette ottavi degli stati parte (tra quelli che hanno già acconsentito alla cancellazione figura la stessa Francia).

Nella speranza di mettere al riparo propri cittadini da possibili responsabilità per crimini di guerra, quindi, Kiev ha optato per la clausola in via di cancellazione. Tuttavia, anche se accettata, la clausola non potrebbe essere applicata retroattivamente.

QUELLO dell’Ucraina potrebbe rivelarsi un clamoroso autogol: se l’articolo 124 fosse applicato, non escluderebbe solo la giurisdizione della Corte su possibili crimini di guerra commessi da cittadini ucraini, ma anche su crimini di guerra commessi su suolo ucraino, inclusi quelli contestati alla leadership e alle forze russe. L’articolo parla di crimini di cui sono sospettati cittadini dello Stato e di crimini la cui commissione è sospettata sul territorio dello stato. È indubbio che i crimini di guerra contestati a Putin, Lvova-Belova e ai comandanti delle forze russe rientrino in tale categoria.

Le implicazioni di questo tentativo, tuttavia, non si limitano ai gravi rischi di effetti controproducenti per il diritto alla giustizia delle stesse vittime ucraine. Segnalano, più profondamente, una riproduzione dell’approccio tipico degli Stati uniti al diritto internazionale penale: ci si indigna per i barbarici crimini internazionali dei nemici, proclamando a reti unificate la necessità morale della loro punizione, mentre si mantiene in vigore nella propria legislazione la cd. «Legge di Invasione dell’Aja», che autorizza all’uso della forza armata per liberare cittadini americani o di stati alleati imputati di crimini internazionali e in custodia della Corte.

Persino le norme più elementari di diritto internazionale, ovvero quelle funzionali alla prevenzione e punizioni dei crimini di massa (e di Stato) si dichiarano senza infingimenti buone solo per i nemici e simultaneamente inapplicabili a se stessi.

TRAMONTA così il nucleo di tre secoli di sviluppo della tradizione giuridica illuministico-liberale, cardine dei modelli democratici di giustizia penale, che esigono che sia il tipo di condotta, con il danno sociale che produce e non il tipo di autore, a essere al centro dell’attenzione dei codici penali e delle istituzioni punitive. Al contrario, l’enfasi sui tipi di autore – identificati di volta in volta come nemici «della razza», «della patria» o «della rivoluzione» – fu il tratto distintivo dei modelli punitivi delle esperienze autoritarie e totalitarie.

È un paradosso degno del regresso a cui la guerra ci condanna che siano proprio le forze che si proclamano a difesa delle democrazie a formalizzare e istituzionalizzare nuovi modelli di diritto del nemico, che globalizzano l’etica della diseguaglianza di fronte alla legge e forgiano politiche internazionali che riducono il diritto a strumento di guerra ibrida.

Il nemico totale, la guerra e il diritto del nemico totale sono stati i motori della distruzione della democrazia nel Novecento. Piaccia o meno, è solo l’ultimo a mancare all’appello nell’attuale discorso dominante delle democrazie occidentali. Guerra e democrazia, è una legge della storia, si combattono sempre, spesso all’ultimo sangue. Caduto il bastione dell’eguaglianza di fronte alla legge, anche crimini internazionali e genocidi potranno essere crimini buoni e giusti, purché a commetterli sia la nostra tribù, la tribù delle democrazie.

[reasonsforhope]

An illegal toxic dump site in Croatia, the theft of water from a major aquifer in southern Spain, illegal trading of ozone-depleting refrigerants in France: This is just a sampling of the environmental crimes that European countries are struggling to stop. The lack of accountability for these acts stems in part from the European Union’s legal code, which experts say is riddled with vague definitions and gaps in enforcement. That’s about to change. 

Last week, EU lawmakers voted in a new directive that criminalizes cases of environmental damage “comparable to ecocide,” a term broadly defined as the severe, widespread, and long-term destruction of the natural world. Advocates called the move “revolutionary,” both because it sets strict penalties for violators, including up to a decade in jail, and because it marks the first time that an international body has created a legal pathway for the prosecution of ecocide.

“This decision marks the end of impunity for environmental criminals and could usher in a new age of environmental litigation in Europe,” wrote Marie Toussaint, a French lawyer and EU parliamentarian for the Greens/European Free Alliance group, on X...

The new directive uses the term “ecocide” in its preamble, but does not criminalize the act by laying out a legal definition (the most widely accepted definition of ecocide was developed by an international panel of experts in 2021). Instead, it works by providing a list of “qualified offenses,” or crimes that fall within its purview. These include pollution from ships, the introduction of invasive species, and ozone depletion...

The new law holds people liable for environmental destruction if they acted with knowledge of the damage their actions would cause. This aspect of the law is important, experts said, because it means that a permit is no longer enough for a company to avoid culpability.  

“If new information shows that behavior is causing irreversible damage to health and nature – you will have to stop,” a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, Antonius Manders, told Euronews. 

Advocates like Mehta hope that the EU’s move will have influence beyond Europe’s borders. The principal goal of the Stop Ecocide campaign is for the International Criminal Court to designate ecocide as the fifth international crime that it prosecutes, after crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and genocide. At the moment, environmental destruction can only be prosecuted as a war crime at the ICC, and limitations in the law make this extremely difficult to do...

Kate Mackintosh, the executive director of the Netherlands-based UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, told Grist that the ICC is unlikely to adopt an ecocide law if other countries do not do so first. 

“It’s not something you can just pull out of thin air,” she said, adding that any international legal doctrine has to have a precedent on the national level. “That’s the way states are going to accept it.”

The EU’s 27 member states will have two years to adapt the new legislation into their penal codes. Afterwards, their implementation must be reviewed and updated at least once every five years using a “risk-analysis based approach,” to account for advancements in experts’ understanding of what might constitute an environmental crime. Mehta said that despite its omission of some important offenses, the law sets an important example for other countries. Several days before the EU vote, Belgium adapted its criminal code to include the directive, making it the first country in Europe to recognize ecocide as a crime.

The ruling “shows leadership and compassion,” Mehta said. “It will establish a clear moral as well as legal ‘red line’, creating an essential steer for European industry leaders and policy-makers going forward.”

-via Grist, March 6, 2024

[un-ionizetheradlab]

Russia just freed SIXTEEN political prisoners in a prisoner swap with the West!

Among the released political prisoners are:

Oleg Orlov, a longtime dissident and the co-chair of Memorial, an organization created in 1989 to chronicle the USSR's human rights abuses and educate Russians about the history of political repression;

Sasha Skochilenko, an LGBTQ artist who was imprisoned in April 2022 for replacing price tags at grocery stores with data about Russian destruction in Ukraine, deemed treasonous under Russia's "fake news" law;

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political dissident who was fundamental in bringing about the Magnitsky Act to sanction Russian human rights abusers, and who was poisoned twice by the KGB in attempted assassinations before being sentenced to 25 years in prison for "treason";

Evan Gershkovich, a young American journalist who was arrested in Russia while reporting for the Wall Streeet Journal in March 2023 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for "espionage";

Paul Whelan, American former Marine who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor for "espionage";

Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for spreading "fake news" about the war in Ukraine;

Andrei Pivovarov, an opposition activist who headed the pro-democracy organization Open Russia before being imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony infamous for its torture of prisoners;

Ilya Yashin, a young opposition politician who was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for publishing YouTube videos about the war in Ukraine; when Russian authorities "encouraged" him to leave the country, he chose instead to stay;

Lilia Chanysheva, opposition activist and regional coordinator of Navalny HQ; in her final speech before the Russian court, she tried in vain to appeal to the judge's sense of empathy: "If you put me in jail for 12 years, I will be too old to bear a child. Give me a chance to be a mother!";

Kevin Lik, a dual German-Russian citizen who was arrested as a minor for "photographing military sites" shortly before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; he was the youngest person ever to be convicted of treason in Russia;

Rico Krieger, a German man sentenced to death in Belarus for supposedly planting explosives on a railroad track to help the Ukrainian army;

Dieter Voronin, a dual German-Russian citizen and political scientist who was arrested in 2021 in connection to a treason case involving Russian journalist Ivan Safronov;

Patrick Schobel, a German man arrested in February 2024 at the Pulkovo International Airport in St Petersburg when customs officers found cannabis gummies in his luggage, in a scenario very similar to that of Brittney Griner;

German Moyzhes, a dual German-Russian citizen and lawyer who was charged with treason for helping Russians obtain European residency permits;

Vadim Ostanin, opposition activist and Navalny associate arrested in 2021 for his work with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation;

Ksenia Fadeyeva, dissident and Navalny associate sentenced to 9 years in prison.

[knario47]

TIXAMA, EL ULTIMO GUAYRE.

Ésta es una publicación del periódico La Provincia, cuyo articulista T. M. R. no sabe el nombre de la última escultura que representaban a los Guayres de Agaldar, capital de la isla o lo que es lo mismo de la isla de Canaria, hoy en día isla de Gran Canaria.

Gáldar incorpora un último Guaire al conjunto escultórico

Este grupo que homenajea a esta figura histórica en la localidad norteña

T. M. R.

Teodoro Sosa y Encarnación Ruiz junto a la escultura del Guaire incorporada -la de la izquierda

Una escultura de un Guaire se ha incorporado esta semana al grupo que homenajea a esta figura histórica en Gáldar que se encuentra situada en la calle que lleva su nombre. Con esta última talla serán seis obras, divididas en dos conjuntos, las que representan a estos guerreros. Se trata de un conjunto, obra del escultor Fernando Silva Moreno, que recoge dos escenas con ocho elementos diferentes: seis figuras masculinas de aproximadamente dos metros de altura, de las cuales cuatro están de pie y dos sentadas, una cabra y una roca con un tablero de juegos que rememora al juego que practicaban los aborígenes denominado La Chascona. El conjunto está hecho de jesmonite y las figuras pesan hasta cien kilos.

Teodoro Sosa, alcalde de Gáldar, visitó este grupo escultórico junto a Encarnación Ruiz, coordinadora del proyecto, tras la instalación de la última figura. El primer edil recordó que el municipio dispondrá en las dos entradas principales del municipio, la calle Guaires y la Bajada de Las Guayarminas, "de lo que nos tiene que representar: nuestros orígenes, nuestra tierra, nuestros antepasados". Seis Guaires eran los que asesoraban al Guanarteme durante la Conquista, desde 1478 a 1483, Adargoma, Doramas, Tixama, Gayfa, Tazarte y Gaytafa, y seis Guaires son los que quedan instalados en esta calle.

[coochiequeens]

Russia gave her a harsher sentence for placing stickers in a grocery store then they do men who kill women.

17 Nov 2023

Russian artist Alexandra Skochilenko has been sentenced to jail for seven years after being found guilty of spreading “false information” about the Russian military by replacing a handful of supermarket price tags with messages criticising the war in Ukraine.

The 33-year-old, known as Sasha, is one of thousands of Russians to be detained, fined or jailed for speaking out against Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour amid an escalating crackdown on free speech and opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

Skochilenko was arrested in her native St Petersburg in April 2022, after an elderly customer at the supermarket found the slogans on the price tags and notified the police.

“The Russian army bombed an arts school in Mariupol. Some 400 people were hiding in it from the shelling,” one read, in reference to Russia’s brutal siege of the southern Ukrainian city. Another said, “Russian conscripts are being sent to Ukraine. Lives of our children are the price of this war.”

Judge Oksana Demiasheva delivered the verdict on Thursday hours after Skochilenko, who has a congenital heart defect and coeliac disease, had made a final statement to the court, asking for compassion and to be set free.

As well as the prison term, the artist was banned from using the internet for three years.

Skochilenko, wearing a colourful T-shirt decorated with a large red heart, reacted with shock to the sentence, covering her face and wiping away tears.

Supporters shouted “shame” and “we’re with you Sasha”, the AFP news agency reported.

Skochilenko’s lawyers left without giving any comment.

Skochilenko’s arrest came about a month after authorities adopted a law effectively criminalising any public expression about the war that deviated from the Kremlin’s official line.

Human rights group Memorial – now banned in Russia – said police spent 10 days interrogating supermarket staff and inspecting security camera footage before arresting the artist.

“They sometimes give less for murder than for five price tags in a supermarket,” Boris Vishnevsky, a politician linked to the opposition Yabloko party, told AFP.

“Hopefully, someday, the pendulum will turn the other way.”

Skochilenko was accused of committing what the state prosecutor described as a serious crime out of “political hatred” towards Russia. He had asked for her to be jailed for eight years.

Skochilenko admitted to swapping the tags but denied that the text written on them was false. She said she was a pacifist who valued human life above all else.

“How weak is our prosecutor’s faith in our state and society if he thinks our statehood and public safety can be ruined by five little pieces of paper?” she said in court.

“Everyone sees and knows that you are not judging a terrorist. You’re not trying an extremist. You’re not even trying a political activist. You’re judging a pacifist,” she said.

Skochilenko’s friends and supporters said the verdict was a disgrace [Olga Maltseva/AFP]

Amnesty International condemned the verdict.

“Her persecution has become synonymous with the absurdly cruel oppression faced by Russians openly opposing their country’s criminal war,” it said in a statement.

Memorial has designated Skochilenko a political prisoner and has launched a campaign calling for her release.

She has already been in detention for nearly 19 months, meaning that her overall term will be reduced by more than two years, since every day served in a pre-trial detention centre counts as 1.5 days of time served in a regular penal colony.

But she has struggled in custody due to pre-existing health conditions, and her need for a gluten-free diet, according to her lawyers and her partner.

According to OVD-Info, a prominent rights group that monitors political arrests and provides legal aid, a total of 19,834 Russians have been arrested between February 24 2022, when Russia began its invasion, and late October 2023 for speaking out or demonstrating against the war.

Also on Thursday, opposition politician Vladimir Milov was convicted in absentia of spreading false information about the army and sentenced to eight years. Milov, who was once Russia’s deputy energy minister and is now an ally of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has left the country.

[beardedmrbean]

Although Iranian authorities have widely restricted access to abortion in an attempt to reverse demographic decline, more women are going outside the law to end unwanted pregnancies.

According to figures from the Iranian Ministry of Health reported by the Khabaronline news website in June 2024, over 600,000 illegal abortions are performed annually in Iran.

Experts say poverty, joblessness, and lack of social security are contributing factors forcing women to undergo an abortion despite serious risks.

In November 2021, Iranian lawmakers, under the auspices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei passed a law called the "rejuvenation of the population and support of the family."

The "population law," which is in effect for a 7-year trial period, quickly drew condemnation.

UN human rights experts issued a statement calling for the law to be repealed. They decried the legislation as a "direct violation of women's human rights under international law."

"This law violates the rights to life and health" by blocking access to a "range of reproductive health services" and information on reproductive rights, the UN activists.

Severe restrictions on reproductive health care

Under the population law, abortions in the case of a threat to life of the mother or fetus will only be allowed by the permission of a panel consisting of a judge, a court-appointed doctor and a forensic doctor.

Doctors or surgeons who perform abortions illegally risk the permanent loss of their license, prison sentences of two to five years, and heavy fines.

Contraceptives are also no longer provided free of charge in health centers or pharmacies. Additionally, the law criminalizes any form of sterilization, including procedures such as vasectomy and tubal ligation.

The Islamic penal code allows men to report their wives for having an abortion. In such cases, the women face fines, depending on the results of forensic investigations.

No more genetic testing before pregnancy

In October 2024, the head of the Center for Population Growth at Iran's Ministry of Health warned that center staff were actively identifying couples planning abortions in hospitals and doctor's offices to pressure and dissuade them from doing so.

The law also abolished the obligation to undergo genetic testing before pregnancy. Before its adoption, abortion was permitted if the fetus was proven to have severe disabilities by three doctors. This is expected to lead to a dramatic rise in birth defects.

According to the law, laboratories must register their patients' data online. This allows for pregnant women to be identified and punished if they later fail to give birth.

"Data clearly shows that criminalizing the termination of pregnancy does not reduce the number of women who resort to abortion," the UN experts said. "Instead, it forces women to risk their lives by undergoing clandestine and unsafe procedures."

Women turn to black market abortions

There are multiple indications that government restrictions have turned Iran into a booming black market for abortion drugs.

Dr. Parvin Delshad, a doctor and lecturer at the University of Queensland in Australia, told DW that these restrictive laws increase maternal mortality through "underground abortions."

"Regardless of whether the abortion is performed at home using medication to promote bleeding or by surgical intervention, it must be carried out under the supervision of a specialist. In both cases, it must be ensured that there is no danger to life," she said.

Delshad emphasized that doctors must ensure that women planning an abortion do not suffer from sexually transmitted diseases, as this increases the risk of pelvic infections and subsequent infertility.

According to the doctor, women who take illegal abortion drugs are often unaware of the health complications and put their lives at risk by having unsafe pregnancy terminations.

Data from the Iranian Ministry of Health indicates around 60% of abortions are carried out at home using abortion pills, 30% in doctors' clinics and 10% in "herbal stores" using herbal preparations.

Iran's population problem

In November 2024, Iran's deputy health minister, Alireza Raisi, warned that declining birth rates mean Iran's population could decrease by 50% before 2100.

Along with the strict restrictions on reproductive health, Iranian authorities are offering "incentives" under the population law to encourage families to have more children.

These include providing 200 square meters of land for a family with a third child, brand new vehicles for mothers having a second child, and full health insurance for unemployed mothers with three or more children.

However, a sociologist at the University of Tehran told DW that he doubts Iranian authorities can actually provide these incentives to families.

"Before discussing population growth, we should ask ourselves how many resources are actually available. Can these promises be fulfilled at all?" the expert said under the condition of anonymity. He adding that without the full acceptance of the Iranian public towards having more children, the laws will only have a superficial effect, even if they are imposed by oppressive measures.

"What about the quality of life and social well-being? Is there fair access to healthcare and education? And what is the capacity of the labor market?" he asked.

Even if the laws entice more people in economically depressed situations to have more children, the structural problems in Iran's economy and society will remain a challenge to growth in the future, according to the sociologist.

[marcussour]

Following South Africa's footsteps taking Israel into the International Court of Justice, Chile announced today a presentation to the office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in order for the opening of an investigation into Israel's crimes in Palestine.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trudy Ring at The Advocate:

If you’re looking for yet another reason that Donald Trump shouldn’t be elected president again, we have two words for you: Project 2025. You’ve probably been hearing these words, but you may be sketchy on what they mean. We’re here to fill you in on the details thanks to a report by Accountable.US.

What is Project 2025?

Basically, Project 2025 is a blueprint of what far-right activists want from the next conservative president — and Trump is the conservative who’s running. It includes plans to fire as many as 50,000 career federal employees and replace them with people who have unquestionable loyalty to the president; restrict access to contraception; possibly implement a national abortion ban; cut federal health care programs; and much more, designed to make the U.S. an authoritarian nation. And LGBTQ+ people are directly in its crosshairs. “Project 2025 couldn’t make its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda any more clear. With far-right extremists at the helm, the project is a power grab by conservatives attempting to turn back the clock on hard-fought progress and fundamental rights,” Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone said in a statement to The Advocate. “Project 2025 doesn’t just pose an existential threat to our democracy but seriously threatens the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ communities across the country.”

[...]

How will it affect LGBTQ+ Americans?

Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” is a document taking up 900 pages, but Accountable.US has put together a succinct summary of what Project 2025 would mean to LGBTQ+ Americans, and The Advocate has a first look. Here are the key points. The project urges the next conservative president to basically ignore the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the court found that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination in the workplace, also bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. President Joe Biden, in contrast, had directed all federal agencies to implement the provisions of Bostock not just in the workplace but in health care, education, and other aspects of life. It calls for barring transgender people from the military and to stop what it considers the “toxic normalization of transgenderism” across the government and American society. It seeks to abolish the president’s Gender Policy Council, “which it views as promoting abortion and the ‘new woke gender ideology,’” Accountable.US notes.

The next Health and Human Services secretary, Project 2025 recommends, should reverse what it calls a focus on “‘LGBTQ+ equity,’ subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage, replacing such policies with those encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families.” “The Project 2025 playbook laments the fact that family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are ‘fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,”’ making it clear that they intend to roll those agenda items back,” Accountable.US explains. It further calls for the Department of Justice “to defend the First Amendment right of those who would discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. It also objects to the DOJ notifying states that their bans on abortion and medical services to transgender persons may violate federal law,” Accountable.US reports. On foreign policy, Project 2025 says a new conservative president should dismantle and U.S. Agency for International Development programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, such as what it dubs “the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda.”

Project 2025’s harmful anti-LGBTQ+ agenda is just one piece of the radical right-wing Heritage Foundation document. Project 2025’s goals are to make life harder for LGBTQ+ Americans.

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Civilians flee for their lives as the Israeli occupation forces open fire on civilians near a school in the Hamdan area of the Jabalia Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, coinciding with occupation artillery shelling near the displaced Palestinians looking for shelter. 📸 Photos of the Jabalia Camp's massive destruction following the withdrawal of occupation forces from some areas of the camp. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

DAY 237: ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES WITHDRAW FROM PARTS OF JABALIA, AID TO GAZA DECREASES BY 67%, ISRAELI KNESSET TO DECLARE UNRWA A "TERRORIST ORGANIZATION", UN SECURITY COUNCIL TO VOTE ON DRAFT RESOLUTION TO END OPS IN RAFAH, OCCUPATION BOMBINGS CONTINUE

On 237th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 5 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 53 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 357 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted, as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will vote today on a draft resolution to stop the ongoing Israeli aggression in Rafah.

The draft resolution, proposed by member-state Algeria, calls for Security Council to "decide that Israel, the occupying power, must immediately cease its military attack and any other action in Rafah."

The draft resolution would also demand an "immediate ceasefire respected by all parties," also demanding the "immediate and unconditional release of all hostages," and further, calls on all parties to "comply with their obligations under International law with respect to all persons they detain."

The draft resolution is the first of its kind since the Israeli attack over the weekend on a UNRWA displacement camp for Palestinian refugees that killed 46 and wounded 249 others, while Algeria is also expected to follow up the resolution with other steps at the level of the Security Council.

Previously, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague called on the Israeli occupation to "immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governate" which could inflict on Palestinians "conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," and to comply with any and all UN or independent international investigations.

At the same time, the Israeli Knesset approved today a draft law which would declare the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) a "terrorist organization".

The draft law was submitted to the Israeli Knesset at the request of member Yulia Milinovsky from the Yisrael Beiteina Party, and was supported by 42 members, with six opposing.

The draft law would apply the "Anti-terrorism Law" to the UNRWA, declaring that "all communications between Israel and its citizens and UNRWA shall be halted, and the agency's offices in Israel shall be closed," and would apply the applicable provisions of the penal code to that refer to "terrorist organizations".

Previously, an investigation conducted by the Independent Review Group on the UNRWA, led by former French Minister Catherine Colonna, along with the participation of three research institutes, found no evidence for the agency's lack of impartiality, nor the participation of its staff in the events of October 7th, 2023, and found that the organization had established a large number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure its commitment to humanitarian principles, with a focus on neutrality.

In other news, the United Nations has announced that humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip has been reduced by 67% since the Israeli occupation army took over and closed the Rafah border crossing on May 7th.

The announcement came as part of a press conference held by United Nations spokesperson, Stephanie Dujarric, on Wednesday and based the claim on information the spokesperson received from colleagues in the field.

Dujarric declared that the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip had decreased by 67% since May 7th, telling reporters that the main reason behind the sharp reduction of aid was a result of the closure of the Rafah border crossing.

Dujarric went on to emphasize that health agencies, hospitals and other healthcare services are being closed one after another, and that the displacement of civilians due to Israeli attacks further reduces its ability to distribute resources in Gaza.

The UN spokesperson also pointed out that only one hospital in Rafah remains functional at this time, and that the United Nations and its partners are doing their best, despite the extreme conditions faced in the Strip.

Yesterday, it was announced by Gaza's Ministry of Health that all hospitals except for a single Maternity ward had been closed as a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing assault on the Rafah Governate.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation continues its attacks on Rafah, as well as various other axis in the Gaza Strip, bombing and shelling all sectors of the enclave.

At the same time, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) withdrew from some areas of the Jabalia Refugee Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, leaving behind an unearthly landscape of extreme destruction, with entire neighborhoods destroyed by occupation bombing, shelling and the purposeful detonations of buildings and residential squares.

The occupation army refocused its assaults back on the Rafah Governate, as well as some neighborhoods of Gaza City, along with other sectors, with fierce battles ongoing with local Resistance forces.

In the south of Gaza, the occupation army continued advancing in the city of Rafah, coinciding with the violent bombardment of the city, with at least 21 civilians killed over the last 24-hours, while at least 12 have been killed in the Rafah area just since dawn this morning.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) announced the deaths of two paramedics after the Israeli occupation army bombed a PRCS ambulance recovering wounded civilians from the area of the Abu Al-Saeed roundabout, in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, west of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The two paramedics killed in the criminal attack were Haitham Tabasi and Suhail Rasras.

In another atrocity, occupation fighter jets bombed a house belonging to the Al-Muhtaseb family, in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, killing three Palestinians and injuring several others.

Zionist warplanes also bombed a civilian vehicle near the Al-Alam roundabout, west of Rafah, while another bombing killed a child belonging to the Al-Shaer family.

Israeli bombing and artillery shelling also hammered neighborhoods east of Rafah, while at the European Gaza Hospital, southeast of Khan Yunis, the bodies of 13 Palestinians arrived due to bombings in southern Gaza, including 6 from the Rafah area, while 4 were killed in a bombing south of Khan Yunis, and three more were killed when occupation forces targeted a police officer in a bombing.

Zionist aircraft also targeted a residential home belonging to the Zaqout family, on block C of the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the tragic deaths of four civilians and wounding at least 15 others, while a number of others remain missing under the rubble.

IOF warplanes also bombarded three residential homes in central Gaza, leading to the deaths of two Palestinians and wounding many others, while another occupation raid west of Deir al-Balah killed a civilian.

Zionist artillery detatchments also shelled a UNRWA clinic in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

In Gaza's north, IOF fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to the Al-Hato family, in the vicinity of the Al-Zahraa School in the Al-Daraj neighborhood, east of Gaza City, resulting in the martyrdom of 5 civilians and wounding several others.

Additionally, Zionist sniper fire resulted in several casualties on Street 8 near the University College, south of Gaza City, while the occupation army bombed a house for the Al-Zaanoun family, southwest of Gaza City, also leading to a number of casualties.

Another civilian was killed, and 6 others wounded, after occupation forces bombed a residential house in the Al-Shati Refugee Camp, west of Gaza City, while in the Beit Lahiya Project, several civilians were wounded as a result of an occupation airstrike on a residential apartment.

In the meantime, occupation Merkava tanks continued its control over several blocks of the Jabalia Camp, including blocks 1-8, coinciding with the detonation of civilian homes.

An Israeli quadcopter drone also killed several people in the Sultan's area of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, while two others were killed in a bombing on the town of Jabalia al-Balad.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among the local population has risen to exceed 36'224 Palestinians killed, including over 15'000 children and 10'000 women, while another 81'777 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

May 30th, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[mariacallous]

Right-wing American Christian groups that oppose sexual and reproductive rights are significantly increasing their spending in Africa, according to a new data analysis published ahead of a U.S. election, which could prove pivotal to abortion access both inside and outside the country.

Research by the nonprofit Institute for Journalism and Social Change (IJSC) found that 17 groups increased their Africa spending by 50% between 2019 and 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. The researchers say the data represents only a handful of Christian Right groups but indicates that they are making an increasingly concerted effort to influence abortion policy internationally as well as domestically.

A 2020 investigation by openDemocracy revealed that $54 million dollars flowed from mostly the same U.S. Christian Right organizations to Africa between 2008 and 2018. In Africa, their activities range from helping like-minded politicians obstruct key reproductive health legislation to supporting domestic groups in their fight against progressive abortion-related court rulings—tactics borrowed from the anti-abortion playbook in the United States.

While abortion laws have slowly liberalized across the continent, reproductive rights advocates say campaigning by American right-wing groups that brand themselves as “pro-family” could reverse those changes.

“The work of these groups has multifaceted effects on the continent,” said Martin Onyango, senior legal adviser for Africa at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a U.S.-based advocacy group. “We have seen a proliferation of anti-rights legislation on the continent of Africa, from Ghana to Uganda to Kenya to Malawi. We have groups that are now proposing legislation in parliament to take away fundamental rights—access to reproductive health care—that have been in place on the continents for decades.”

Many of the groups named in the report have close ties to former President Donald Trump and his administration and have influenced Trump on reproductive rights issues. Several are on the advisory board for Project 2025, a set of policy proposals seen the probable playbook for a second Trump term.

American anti-abortion groups have campaigned in Africa for decades in tandem with their fight at home. Bolstered by conservative Republican politicians, the 1973 Helms Amendment, which limits the use of U.S. foreign aid for abortion, was passed after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling. President Ronald Reagan then enacted the Mexico City policy, known as the global gag rule, which restricts U.S. funding to any international organization that provides, or even counsels on, abortion. The U.S. Christian Right has found Africa, with its strong tradition of Evangelical Christianity, fertile ground for further promoting and spreading its ideology. The result is a global movement that unites anti-abortion groups, religious leaders, and politicians around a common goal: eliminating the right to safe, legal abortion services worldwide.

Despite some liberalization, abortion remains highly restricted in many African countries. As of 2022, abortion was essentially illegal in six African countries and permitted only to save the life of the mother in another 13 countries.

Research has shown that banning abortions increases maternal mortality due to unsafe abortions. As of 2019, sub-Saharan Africa had the highest abortion case-fatality rate of any world region, at roughly 185 deaths per 100,000 abortions, a total of 15,000 preventable deaths every year.

Uganda’s Penal Code prohibits abortion except to save the mother’s life. In 2015, the Ministry of Health approved standards and guidelines on the provision of safe abortion, but those were quickly withdrawn. Onyango says this was partly due to lobbying by right-wing groups, including Family Watch International (FWI), a fundamentalist Arizona-based Christian organization whose spending in Africa increased nearly five-fold from 2019 to 2022.

Court cases challenging the withdrawal of those guidelines have not yet been heard, says Onyango.

“When they’re set for hearing, the bench is quickly reconstituted and the exercise starts again from ground zero,” he said. “And it is not by default. It is by clear design that that conversation is not intended to be concluded.”

According to reproductive rights advocates, American right-wing groups are playing the long game in Africa.

“Kenya, Uganda, Ghana appear to be the epicenter of a lot of anti-rights action, and that is where they build a lot of their strategy before exporting them to other countries. … When they leave Kenya, they go down to Malawi, and they replicate the same actions,” said Onyango.

Abortion was illegal in Kenya until 2010, when a new constitution permitted the procedure in a handful of circumstances, including during emergencies or if the life or health of the mother is in danger. Subsequent court decisions allowed abortions in cases of rape and incest and expanded the definition of “health” to include mental health.

But access remains limited, and studies have shown that most Kenyans have limited or inaccurate knowledge of their country’s abortion laws and policies. The legal landscape is confusing, even for medical providers who hesitate to perform the procedure to avoid criminal prosecution.

Ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the United States in 2022, reproductive rights advocates have worried that the same thing could happen in Kenya.

“We export a lot of our values and cultures from the United States, so the Roe v. Wade decision was completely misinterpreted here, because in our setting what we got was that abortion has been made illegal in the United States. That’s the message that we got because Roe was overturned,” said Dr. Ernest Nyamato, associate director of quality of care at the reproductive health care nonprofit IPAS.

In Kenya, a conservative group called the Kenya Christian Professionals Forum (KCPF) is appealing two recent court decisions: one affirming that abortion is a fundamental constitutional right, making the arrest of patients and providers illegal, and a second upholding the constitutional right to access abortion when there is a risk to the pregnant person’s health.

The KCPF’s chairperson, Charles Kanjama, denies receiving funding from any American organizations. But its annual report shows that its parent organization, the African Christian Professionals Forum (ACPF), was sponsored in 2023 by FWI. That same year, FWI’s president, Sharon Slater, was a featured speaker at ACPF’s annual conference.

FWI said it was unable to provide comment on this story within the requested time frame.

Part of the challenge of tracking the funding flows is a lack of transparent documentation. “We’re treating what we found as the tip of the iceberg,” said Claire Provost, co-founder of the IJSC. “We didn’t capture all funding from U.S. anti-rights actors into Africa. It’s a diverse and evolving ecosystem, with new organizations being set up all the time.”

The influence of these groups is clearly visible. Their members share training materials with African organizations, travel to the continent for conferences, and sponsor events such as Kenya’s March for Life, an annual demonstration against abortion, says Saoyo Tabitha Griffith, a Kenyan lawyer and women’s rights advocate.

In 2019, Nairobi hosted the ICPD25, a global population and development conference. Across the street from the venue, a few hundred people gathered in opposition to sexual and reproductive rights, including several groups tracked by the IJSC.

Former Trump administration delegates, including Valerie Huber, who was U.S. special representative for Global Women’s Health, were also there. Huber was a chief architect of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a document submitted by the United States to the United Nations that encourages governments to improve women’s health care without abortion. She now travels across Africa promoting anti-abortion ideology for her nonprofit, the Institute for Women’s Health (IWH), another Project 2025 sponsor.

In a statement, an IWH spokesperson wrote that no IWH funds had been spent in Africa, other than for routine travel expenses, and that IHC has not provided any grants to African groups or individuals, is not partnering in Kenya, and has no plans to increase spending in Africa.

Huber hopes “to improve health and thriving for women, their children, their families, and their communities through high-quality, research-based policy guidance to nations,” the spokesperson wrote.

America’s global abortion policy seesaws back and forth depending on which party holds office, and Griffith said she witnessed years of damaging changes during Trump’s presidency. “I do not think I want to even imagine what a Trump reelection would mean for the women of Kenya,” she said.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Manfred von Karma

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

The Ace Attorney series has no shortage of iconic prosecutors going up against Phoenix Wright in court, but most of them aren’t really Psycho Analysis material. Edgeworth, Franziska, Nahyuta, Blackquill, and even Winston Payne are all simply antagonistic and ultimately are revealed to be good people when it comes down to it, while Klavier Gavin is outright a nice guy—it is his defense attorney brother who’s an irredeemable monster. There are only a small handful of legitimately villainous prosecutors who will be covered, and one of them is the epitome of an anti-villain. But this guy here that I’m reviewing now? He is easily one of the biggest bastards in the entire franchise.

Manfred von Karma is a prosecutor obsessed with the idea of perfection, and he seeks to achieve it both in and out of the courtroom. He’s ruthless, unscrupulous, and will do anything to achieve victory, be it by manipulating and destroying evidence or orchestrating an over-complicated revenge scheme. And on top of it all, he is one of the single most important antagonists in the series; in fact, he kickstarted the entire plot with his actions.

Motivation/Goals: Von Karma is absolutely obsessed with the idea of perfection, and to this end he concocted the most absolute, perfect revenge against the family that tarnished his perfect prosecution record. Gregory Edgeworth got him penalized back in the day, so von Karma seized upon a golden opportunity and murdered him in cold blood, which turned into the DL-6 incident—something that pretty much set the stage for the whole series.

But that’s a bit too mundane for a man like von Karma, so he didn’t stop there! He took in the son of his most hated rival, warped him into becoming a ruthless prosecutor, and then on the eve of the statue of limitations running out on DL-6 manipulated events to get his protege framed for murder, be it that of Hammond or his own father. Von Karma is just incapable of settling for something simple and clean, the man wants to completely and utterly decimate the Edgeworth name’s respectability for the slight against him.

Breakdown: Befitting the final boss of the game, von Karma’s breakdown is absolutely spectacular. Once you finally reveal him as the killer of Gregory Edgeworth because of that bullet he carelessly left embedded in his shoulder, he lets out a massive screen-rumbling roar as images of DL-6 flash onscreen.

Then he smashes his head on the wall, all while ranting about Edgeworth. It is incredibly satisfying to watch this smug bastard fall apart after being so thoroughly trounced by our rookie protagonist, and it really seals the deal on Wright's character development over the course of the game alongside Edgeworth's.

Final Fate: Von Karma is in a very small pool of Ace Attorney villains we get a definitive word on the ultimate fate of, with most others only getting ambiguous demises at the hands of the judicial system or otherwise imprisonment. By the time of the third game, he is explicitly stated to be “gone from this world.” Whether he was executed, killed himself, or simply died from natural causes is of course left to your imagination, but it’s still reassuring to know the bastard is dead after everything he put the heroes through.

Evilness: On the surface, Manfred seemingly pales in comparison to later villains like multiple murderer Dahlia Hawthorne, professional killer Shelley De Killer, or international espionage master “The Phantom,” as he only ever killed a single person (albeit a very important person, with the killing done out of spite). A single murder isn’t really enough to get a high Evilness score, no matter what the reason is.

But then you think about his decades-long prosecution career where he did literally everything he could to get a conviction. How many innocent people did the Demon Prosecutor send to an early grave despite their innocence? And look at how he adopted the son of the man he killed and warped him into his antithesis just to get one over on the man who put a mark on his perfect record; that shit is beyond diabolical. That’s not even getting into how he treated his own daughter.

I think it’s honestly wild how even with all that to consider, he’s still not the most evil guy in the franchise. He’s a 9/10 on the evil scale, a truly nasty, monstrous piece of work who is theoretically responsible for dozens upon dozens of deaths of innocents, and is most definitely a warped, vindictive bastard.

Final Thoughts & Score: Von Karma is one of the best Ace Attorney villains, but I think he kind of suffers from how the game he appears in is structured. Like this dude is monumentally important to the entire plot, the whole series wouldn’t have happened at all without his actions, and yet he appears in one single case at the end of the game, which doesn’t leave a great deal of time to expand upon him the way the other prosecutors of the series get expanded on. By all accounts, he should be just as pitiful as Redd White is

The thing is, though, that von Karma manages to cram so much personality into his limited time onscreen that he becomes unforgettable for all the right reasons. Unlike White, we get several courtroom segments where we have to contend with his manipulative antics and none of the battles with him disappoint—fitting for the man who taught Miles Edgeworth. And again, unlike White, von Karma manages to have a meaningful impact and presence beyond his only appearance; his daughter is the antagonistic prosecutor of Justice For All, and he pops up in a couple of cases in the Investigations games, one of which is a flashback to the case where Gregory Edgeworth gave him his one and only penalty.

I think what really helps von Karma stand out is just how vindictive he is. Frankly, the sheer insane lengths the man goes to for his revenge is utterly disturbing for something so incredibly petty. So many killers do the deed for equally petty and self-servng reasons, but outside of Kristoph Gavin none of them are as terrifyingly shallow as von Karma and none of them go to the same insane, absurd lengths he does to crush those who he views as having wronged him. He is one of the single pettiest bitches in the entire series.

I think von Karma manages a nice 9.5/10. He’s really only held back slightly by his extremely limited screentime, but he certainly makes the most of it whenever he appears. It’s honestly pretty amazing that the first game managed to have both an excellent significant plot-relevant villain and a pathetic significant villain who barely makes a splash, but any flaws White brought to this game are easily forgotten when Manfred shows up. He’s just a great final boss, plain and simple… or he would be if it weren’t for the bonus case. But that’s a Psycho Analysis for another time.