updates
News: Previously published pieces on issues covered by Mother Jones, and brief coverage of underreported news.
May 31, 2002
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TODAY: Breaking Up the Bakassi Boys; Easing Access to Bush's Texas Records; 7-Up Bubbles Over Prison Rape; Bypassing a Drug-Law Boondoggle; Suing Greenwashers
Breaking Up the Bakassi Boys
May 31, 2002
Two human rights groups are calling on Nigeria to disband a group of armed vigilantes that has built a reputation for terrorising civilians and has formed close ties to several powerful politicians.
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In a report released last week, Human Rights Watch and the Centre for Law Enforcement Education (CLEEN), a non-governmental organization based in Nigeria, said that local and federal governments must cut off all support for the Bakassi Boys -- a well-organized, government-subsidized vigilante group accused of threatening, torturing and murdering alleged criminals.
MotherJones.com first reported on the Bakassi Boys' brand of justice in April. Formed in 1999, in response to a wave of violent crime in the market towns of southeast Nigeria, the group's brutal approach rapidly gained favor with local residents and government officials frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the country's famously corrupt, under-funded, and scandal-plagued police force. Since then, the Bakassi Boys have expanded beyond dispensing vigilante justice to extortion, murder-for-hire, and political intimidation, the report says.
"We're most concerned with the group's connection to the local governments," says Browen Manby, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's African division. "They're used for crime-fighting, but they're also being used for political purposes -- really, anyone who opposes the government can be targeted."
The Bakassi Boys's ties to local officials are especially apparent in the province of Anambra, where the group is paid from the province's coffers, housed in state offices, and is frequently used to intimidate and even murder the governor's political rivals, human rights activists say.
It is the group's political connections, the report suggests, which explains why Persident Olusegun Obasanjo has been slow to crack down on the Bakassi Boys.
"President Obasanjo is looking for [provincial governors'] support in the 2003 election," says Manby. " If he challenges the Bakassi Boys, he's not going to get that support." Recently, however, Obasanjo has taken a slightly harder line, at least when it comes to political violence. While not mentioning the Bakassi Boys specifically, Obasanjo has railed against "primordial groupings, disguised as cultural or religious associations," which have used violence to attain political goals and vowed that any future political violence would be dealt with severely.
The Bakassi Boys is not the only vigilante group that has tried to fill the void left by the failures of country's law enforcement establishment.
The O'odua People's Congress combined a sort of vigilante policing with political organizing, the latter causing federal government to ban the group in 1999. In the country's northern provinces, vigilante groups are frequently employed to help enforce the strict Islamic code of Sharia law adopted by several states.
Citizens and the Nigerian press have been hesitant to voice any concerns about the vigilante groups' tactics. "There's a reluctance to challenge the Bakassi Boys, because people are afraid. Some those who've spoken out have been killed," says Manby. Unfortunately, the public safety void which led to the rise of the vigilante groups still exists in Nigeria. Moreover, as the report notes, there is strong support in Nigeria for summary justice despite the country's established judicial history.
Still, human rights activists argue that the Bakassi Boys and other brutal vigilante groups represent far too great a threat to Nigeria's people and political stability.
"Sure, community-involved policing can be good," says Manby. "But the Bakassi Boys are not reformable."
-- Kathleen Hennessey
Easing Access to Bush's Texas Records
May 16, 2002
Thousands of documents related to President Bush's tenure as governor of Texas should become more readily available to journalists and others, thanks to a recent ruling by the state's attorney general.
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Attorney General John Cornyn's May 3 decision indicates the documents, in a state of archival limbo for six months, will remain the property of Texas. As a result, access to the documents will be governed by the state's Public Information Act, which allows for speedier response than federal guidelines.
Cornyn's decision came in response to requests filed in late November by Peggy D. Rudd, Director and Librarian of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and Texas Governor Rick Perry. But the flap over the ownership of the documents and the public's access to them dates back to January 2001.
Upon leaving office, Bush turned over the documents to the George Herbert Bush Presidential Library in College Station instead of the state archives. The presidential library is a federal institution, subject to federal laws which give archives 90 days to respond to requests for documents.
According to Texas law, requests for public documents are to be met within ten days. If the request cannot be met in that time, a public information officer must notify the person making the request when the records will be readily accessible. However, journalists and public interest groups reported their requests for access to the former governor's documents were going unanswered for up to 90 days, with little explanation of why.
The placement of gubernatorial records at a library other than the state archives is not uncommon. The records of previous governors William Clements and Ann Richards reside in the library at Texas A & M and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively. However, both are state institutions, governed by state law.
"We were very pleased with the Attorney General's opinion regarding the gubernatorial records of President Bush. We've always been in the business of preserving and making available the record of Texas government," said Edward Seidenberg, Deputy Director of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. "That's what we're about and the opinion seems to confirm that."
Cornyn's decision cites an interim solution, agreed to in early January. Under that plan, the state library and archives commission will be given authority and responsibility for managing the records and making sure requests for access are met in accordance with state law. The presidential library will retain the records, but will forward all requests for access to commission within 72 hours.
Officials at the Bush Library, however, say they are unsure when the changes will take effect.
"I've read the ruling. I'm not clear--it sounds like the papers will stay here, which we are pleased with," said Warren Finch, Archivist for the George Herbert Bush Presidential Library. "I'm not sure when we'll start to negotiate how to access the records in compliance with the Texas Public Information Act."
-- George Sanchez
7-Up Bubbles Over Prison Rape
May 13, 2002
A new 7-Up commercial featuring the soft drink's spokesman pitching the product in prison may be a hit with focus groups, but human rights and prison reform advocates aren't laughing.
Representatives from a broad coalition of rights groups say that the ad, which includes jokes about prison rape, amounts to laughing at sexual assault.
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"The commercial makes light of a very serious human rights issue to sell something as trivial as a soft drink," says Lara Stemple, director of the Los Angeles-based Stop Prison Rape. "People would never joke about rape outside the context of prison."
The ad, dubbed "A Captive Audience", is currently running on MTV, and is slated to air soon on Fox, UPN and the WB network. It depicts a 7-Up marketing exec doling out cans of soda to prison inmates. When the spokesman accidentally drops a can, he refuses to pick it up. At the end of the commercial, the 7-Up pitchman sits uncomfortably in a prison cell as a much larger inmate suggestively puts his arm around the spokesman's shoulder.After the commercial debuted earlier this year, Stop Prison Rape informally asked 7-Up to reconsider running the spot.
"We hoped that we could present them with the facts, and that they would do the responsible thing," Stemple says. But 7-Up officials, citing "overwhelmingly positive feedback" from test viewers, have declined to pull the ad.
"The commercial was very well received by consumer audiences," Kyle Rose, a Dr. Pepper/7-Up, Inc. spokesperson says. While he admits that the ad is an "over-the-top" representation of prison, Rose asserts that 7-Up should not be held accountable for what goes on behind bars.
"The people who need to address this problem are in the US corrections system," he says.
When 7-Up declined to voluntarily pull the ad, Stop Prison Rape joined with 79 other organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, in a campaign to pressure the soft-drink maker to stop airing the commercial.
"Prisoner rape is commonly the subject of jokes, but by pandering to this insensitivity, your company is only perpetuating callousness regarding this horrific, widespread abuse," the group stated in a letter to executives at Dr. Pepper/7-Up, Inc. "We sincerely hope that you will remove the 'Captive Audience' commercial from cable and network television."
The controversial ad plays on the popular notion that prison rape is commonplace, but little actual research has been done to quantify how much sexual assault really takes place behind bars. One 1996 study of Midwestern prisons found 1 in 4 inmates reporting that they had been forced into sexual contact; a follow-up study found that 1 in 10 inmates said they had been raped.
The softdrink company formally responded to Stop Prison Rape's request in early May, telling the activist group they did not intend to pull the ad. While there are no plans for further action yet, Stemple says that the groups "haven't ruled out a boycott."
-- Emily Huber
Bypassing a Drug-Law Boondoggle
May 10, 2002
For many US college students, a minor drug conviction could mean an end to their educational dreams. Unless, of course, they're enrolled at Yale.
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On April 5, Yale University became one of a handful of colleges and universities to authorize the use of its own funds to reimburse students cut off from federal financial aid because of a drug conviction. Hampshire College, Swarthmore and Western Washington University have approved similar policies.
Yale's new policy will allow university officials to match, dollar for dollar, any amount of federal aid lost by a student under a controversial 1998 provision of the Higher Education Act -- provided the student in question undergos drug rehabilitation at the same time. The provision bars students convicted for either possessing or selling drugs from receiving any federal aid until after they complete rehabilitation.
About 40 percent of Yale students receive some form of financial aid, according to Yale's Director of Financial Aid Myra Smith. And while no Yale student has lost federal aid because of a drug conviction, Smith says the policy was adopted in order to avoid a case which "would prevent the student from being here."
While the policies at Yale, Swarthmore, Hampshire and Western Washington offer some help to students there, opponents of the 1998 provision are hoping to sweep it away completely. On May 6, 39 education, civil rights and drug reform organizations -- including the National Education Association, the NAACP, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and the United States Student Association -- sent a joint letter to the House Education and Workforce Committee calling for a repeal of the anti-drug provision. Arguing that the measure is discriminatory, Rep. Barney Frank introduced an amendment last spring to do just that.
"It's racially discriminatory because we know that the drug laws are applied in a racially discriminatory fashion," says the Massachusetts Democrat. "A black kid is more likely than either George Bush or Al Gore to get busted for doing what George Bush and Al Gore both, in effect, acknowledged that they did."
Frank has also argued that the provision penalizes drug offenders in a disproportionate manner. "You can be guilty of repeated driving under the influence, or assault, or a whole range of other crimes and not be automatically subject to [losing aid] the way you are for drugs," he said.
Frank's amendment is currently stuck in a congressional committee.
"If the Republicans had their druthers, it would be holed up in committee forever," he says.
The provision's Republican backers have rejected suggestions that the policy is discriminatory.
"We hope that rich kids don't get away with doing drugs. But if you're receiving federal money, you have an added responsibility," says Seth Becker, a spokesperson for the provision's main sponsor, Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana. "We're not asking kids to do that much. Four years, don't break the law, that's it. Federal aid is not a right."
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that between 2000 and 2001, federal aid was awarded to 70 percent of undergraduates whose families had annual incomes of $20,000 or less. Over the same period, 1,835 applicants were totally refused aid because of the anti-drug provision and 7,770 were deemed partially ineligible, meaning they had convictions which barred them from receiving aid for one or two years.
However, nearly 10 percent of the more than 10 million students that applied for federal aid declined to answer the application form's question on drug conviction. The Department of Education subsequently decided that the wording of the question was confusing, and chose to give aid to students who left the question blank.
"[The policy] is going to reward students for lying in the end, which I think is a bad thing," says Shawn Heller, national president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which opposes the provision.
According to Jane Glickman, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, the wording of the drug conviction question has been tightened this year, and applicants who do not answer it will be denied aid. As a result, the number of applicants whose aid is threatened because of the drug provision is significantly higher this year, Glickman says.
Heller says the majority of those applicants are lower-income students, the kinds of students the Higher Education Ace was designed the benefit. Now, because of the drug conviction provision, Heller argues those students are faced with paying double for a single mistake.
"The whole idea of the Higher Education Act was to help disadvantaged people get higher education," he says. "These people have already paid their debt to society. They shouldn't be sentenced twice."
-- Christopher Fan
Suing Greenwashers
May 3, 2002
The California Supreme Court has ruled that sports powerhouse Nike Inc. can be sued for deceptive advertising if it makes misleading claims as part of a public relations campaign designed to burnish its corporate image.
The 4-3 ruling could mean trouble for scores of corporations that engage in such "greenwashing" campaigns. The court's ruling establishes that such campaigns amount to advertising -- not free speech, as Nike had argued -- and are therefore subject to the same legal controls as advertising.
"Such representations, when aimed at potential buyers for the purpose of maintaining sales and profits, may be regulated to eliminate false and misleading statements because they are readily verifiable by the speaker and because regulation is unlikely to deter truthful and nonmisleading speech," Justice Joyce Kennard wrote in the court's majority ruling.
Under California's broad consumer-protection laws, a company can face penalties and restitution claims if it is found to have knowingly included false or misleading information in its commercial speech.
"It lets advertisers know their products can't be promoted with false statements ... under the guise of, 'This is a matter of public debate,' " says Alan Caplan, an attorney for Marc Kasky, a San Francisco-based activist who brought the suit considered by the state's high court. "The statements are going to have to be truthful or they can be sued."
Kasky says the decision is "a signal to a lot of corporations that might not have the resources Nike has to challenge something like this" to think carefully before playing fast and loose with the truth in their corporate communications. But Ann Brick, an attorney for the Northern California ACLU who filed a legal brief backing Nike, says the ruling "disregards the basic First Amendment principle that we allow the people, not the government, to decide who's right and who's wrong on issues of public dispute."
"It could easily trigger a flood of lawsuits and for that reason it can have a huge chilling effect on the ability of businesses to speak out on important public issues that directly affect them," Brick argues. David Brown, an attorney for Nike, says the Oregon-based corporation may ask the US Supreme Court to consider the decision.
The question of whether Nike actually presented false information in its public relations campaign must still be determined by a lower court. Kasky filed suit against Nike after reading the company launched a public relations campaign responding to news reports about conditions at plants making Nike shoes in Southeast Asia.
The news reports alleged dangerous chemical exposure, physical abuse, and substandard wages in the Asian factories under contract to Nike. The company penned press releases and letters to newspapers and sponsors claiming it had cleaned up its act. But an audit commissioned by the company itself and leaked in 1997 indicated the abuses had not abated.
While a lower state court threw out Kasky's suit, ruling that Nike was simply exercising its right to free speech, the high court's decision has given new life to the case. If Nike is found to have lied in its public relations efforts, the company could be forced to turn over millions in profits it has made in California.
-- Josh Richman
