https://downdetector.com/
>they revealed the layout of their defense systems, altitude maps
ATF Agent tased, arrested at gunpoint by Columbus Police
go around arresting ATF Agents and this is what happens
Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan steps down
>Two U.S. Coast Guard fast response cutters arrived in Beirut, Lebanon for a scheduled port visit July 25
>Ontario town council
https://www.thoroldtoday.ca/local-news/west-lincoln-councillor-broke-code-of-conduct-during-freedom-convoy-5601679
West Lincoln councillor broke code of conduct during 'Freedom Convoy'
Integrity Commissioner issues report on Harold Jonker, a leading figure in the protest convoy that occupied downtown Ottawa over the winter
An integrity commissioner investigation found that West Lincoln Coun. Harold Jonker broke the code of conduct during his role in the "freedom" convoy in Ottawa earlier this year.
The report, published on July 12, found that Jonker broke two sections of the code of conduct: one requiring a duty of loyalty to residents, and another regarding the acceptance of gifts or benefits.
On Monday, July 18, West Lincoln council received the report and voted to penalize Jonker for his actions.
The investigation, carried out by Toronto law firm Aird & Berlis LLP, found the councillor was a vocal representative and leader of the convoy, including after the point the protest was deemed unlawful, meaning the councillor was no longer able to fulfil his duty of loyalty to residents.
It found that Jonker was described as the head of the Niagara convoy and claimed he was among the first group of trucks to reach Parliament Hill on Jan. 28.
Jonker said he did not go to Ottawa as a councillor, but rather as a truck driver and company owner to support what he believed to be a peaceful, lawful demonstration.
“If you’re a member of council, you’re a representative, at all times, of the council,” said John Mascarin, partner at Aird & Berlis LLP.
Responding to the investigation, Jonker wrote: “As a representative I choose to represent the residents who are being negatively affected by the lockdowns and mandates.” The investigation chose to accept that meant he was a representative of the township.
Jonker was also deemed to have breached the section of the code that prohibits the acceptance of gifts or benefits. In comments to media at the time, the councillor confirmed he accepted gifts of fuel and food during the demonstration.
The investigation invited Jonker to outline the gifts or benefits he received, but he did not reply, allowing the investigation to find that the councillor did accept the gifts or benefits.
Jonker said that he missed the email, sent to his township email account, and criticized the investigators for not following up to check he received it before accepting that the lack of response was his fault.
However, Mascarin said that it was convenient that Jonker was only raising the missed email in the council meeting and was attempting to undermine their process and procedure, which was correctly followed.
“If he’s missing emails, it’s a big problem … I’ll be honest, I thought he was ignoring us,” said Mascarin.
At the council meeting, Jonker claimed he did not receive any gifts or benefits as part of his role as a councillor, but rather as a truck driver. He did not personally receive any lodging or fuel, but received coffee, hamburgers and bacon and eggs.
He said it would be impossible for him to quantify the amount of food he received during the demonstration, which Mascarin countered by saying that as a councillor, he should have kept track.
In closing, Jonker asked: “Do we want to live in a country where we are not allowed to protest, or some of us are not allowed to protest, against what we believe and understand to be wrong and harmful for our country?”
“It’s still heart-wrenching and very tough for me when people come up to me, still to this day, and thank me as a truck driver for saving their life, for giving them hope,” he continued.
Council voted to reprimand the councillor, constituting a denouncement of Jonker’s actions, and to suspend his remuneration for 30 days. In addition, Jonker is required to account for the gifts and benefits received, and to reimburse those. Since Jonker said it would be impossible to reimburse the food gifts, Coun. William Reilly suggested a donation to West Lincoln Community Care.
The two votes, accepting the report and determining the penalties, carried 5-1, with Mayor Dave Bylsma opposed.
Chris Pickles is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter at Niagara This Week. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the government of Canada.
source.plz
>Thousands of Indigenous people meet in Maskwacis to hear a long-awaited apology from Pope Francis for the Catholic Church's role in generations of abuse and cultural suppression at Catholic residential schools across Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalping
>then they use them as political props
114 people have been sentenced to death in Myanmar since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021.
https://twitter.com/RapporteurUn/status/1551409495817048065
I'm devastated by news that former parliamentarian Zeyar Thaw and longtime activist Ko Jimmy were executed with two others today. UN Member States must honor their lives by making this depraved act a turning point for the world's response to this crisis. My statement attached.
https://apnews.com/article/myanmar-terrorism-democracy-aung-san-suu-kyi-government-and-politics-ca87f032cb6c7407b1d776574f15c5a8
Myanmar executes ex-lawmaker, 3 other political prisoners
BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s government confirmed Monday it had carried out its first executions in nearly 50 years, hanging a former lawmaker, a democracy activist and two other political prisoners who had been accused of a targeted killing after the country’s military takeover last year.
The executions, first announced in the state-run Mirror Daily newspaper, were carried out despite worldwide pleas for clemency for the four men, including from United Nations experts and Cambodia, which holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
There were swift condemnations. U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said she was dismayed by “this cruel and regressive step.” She added: “For the military to widen its killing will only deepen its entanglement in the crisis it has itself created.”
According to the newspaper, the four were executed “in accordance with legal procedures” for directing and organizing “violent and inhuman accomplice acts of terrorist killings.” It did not say when they were hanged.
The military government later issued a brief statement about the executions, while the prison where the men had been held and the prison department refused comment.
Aung Myo Min, human rights minister for the National Unity Government, a shadow civilian administration established outside Myanmar after the military seized power in February 2021, rejected the allegations the men were involved in violence.
“Punishing them with death is a way to rule the public through fear,” he told The Associated Press.
Among those executed was Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party. Also known as Maung Kyaw, he was convicted in January by a closed military court of offenses involving possession of explosives, bombings and financing terrorism.
His wife, Thazin Nyunt Aung, told the AP the world needs to hold the military accountable for the executions. “They have to pay,” she said.
The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar said it mourned the loss of the four men and offered condolences to their families while decrying the decision to execute them.
“We condemn the military regime’s execution of pro-democracy leaders and elected officials for exercising their fundamental freedoms,” the embassy said.
In China, a longtime ally of Myanmar’s military, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian refused to comment on the executions, saying Beijing “always upholds the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs.”
Phyo Zeya Thaw, 41, was arrested last November based on information from people detained for shooting security personnel, state media said at the time. He was also accused of being a key figure in a network that carried out what the military described as terrorist attacks in Yangon, the country’s biggest city.
Phyo Zeya Thaw had been a hip-hop musician before becoming a member of the Generation Wave political movement formed in 2007. He was jailed in 2008 under a previous military government after being accused of illegal association and possession of foreign currency.
Also executed was Kyaw Min Yu, a 53-year-old democracy activist better known as Ko Jimmy, for violating the counterterrorism law. He was one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Students Group, veterans of a failed 1988 popular uprising against military rule.
He already had spent more than a dozen years behind bars for political activism before his arrest in Yangon last October. He had been put on a wanted list for social media postings that allegedly incited unrest, and state media said he was accused of terrorist acts including mine attacks and of heading a group called Moon Light Operation to carry out urban guerrilla attacks.
The other two, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, were convicted of torturing and killing a woman in March 2021 who they allegedly believed was a military informer.
Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the legal proceedings against the four had been “grossly unjust and politically motivated military trials.”
“The junta’s barbarity and callous disregard for human life aims to chill the anti-coup protest movement,” she said following the announcement of the executions.
Thomas Andrews, an independent U.N.-appointed expert on human rights who had condemned the decision to go ahead with the executions when they were announced in June, called for a strong international response.
“I am outraged and devastated at the news of the junta’s execution of Myanmar patriots and champions of human rights and decency,” he said in a statement. “These individuals were tried, convicted and sentenced by a military tribunal without the right of appeal and reportedly without legal counsel, in violation of international human rights law.”
Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry had rejected the wave of criticism that followed its announcement in June, declaring that its judicial system is fair and that Phyo Zeya Thaw and Kyaw Min Yu were “proven to be masterminds of orchestrating full-scale terrorist attacks against innocent civilians to instill fear and disrupt peace and stability.”
“They killed at least 50 people,” military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said at a televised news conference last month. He said the decision to hang the prisoners conformed with the rule of law and the purpose was to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The military’s seizure of power from Suu Kyi’s elected government triggered peaceful protests that soon escalated to armed resistance and then to widespread fighting that some U.N. experts characterize as a civil war.
Some resistance groups have engaged in assassinations, drive-by shootings and bombings in urban areas. Mainstream opposition organizations generally disavow such activities, while supporting armed resistance in rural areas that are more often subject to brutal military attacks.
The last judicial execution to be carried out in Myanmar is generally believed to have been of another political offender, student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, in 1976 under a previous military government led by dictator Ne Win.
In 2014, the sentences of prisoners on death row were commuted to life imprisonment, but several dozen convicts received death sentences between then and last year’s takeover.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-governmental organization that tracks killing and arrests, said Friday that 2,114 civilians have been killed by security forces since the military takeover. It said 115 other people had been sentenced to death.