• Growing Trump administration hostility toward refugees from the Middle East, has put dozens of migrants from Iran, including Christians, in limbo in Vienna, while their asylum cases are reviewed. Previously, the cases of Iranian minorities seeking asylum were quickly approved under a federal program dating back to the 1990s.
(“Iran Refugees Find Their American Dreams Put on Hold—In Vienna,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 5, 2019)
• In a historic ruling for gay rights in South Asia, India’s Supreme Court overturned a British Colonial era law banning homosexuality as an “order against nature.” The ruling overturned a 2013 Supreme Court decision re-imposing a ban on gay sex, supporting a petition from conservative Christians, Hindus and Muslims.
(“Campaigners Celebrate As India Decriminalizes Homosexuality,” Guardian, Sept. 6, 2018; “’Our Lives Should Be Lived in the Sun’, the Couple Fighting to Legalize Gay Sex in India,” Guardian, July 24, 2018)
• In the midst of the outrage over the separation of migrant families at the U.S.-Mexican border, activists in New York City protested outside the home of Jamie Diamond, CEO of JP Morgan Chase for his bank’s effort to cash-in on the steep increase of immigrant detentions in private prisons. JP Morgan has boosted its investments in the nation’s largest private prison corporations, Geo Group and CoreCivic. According to In These Times magazine, JP Morgan Chase has invested over $167 million dollars in debt financing for the two private prison giants.
(“ICE Inc”, In These Times, no date yet)
