Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-07-10 Thursday

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Headlines for July 10, 2025; From Agents on Horseback in L.A. to a Chicago Arts Festival, Latino Communities Mobilize Against ICE; “Apocalypse in the Tropics”: Brazilian Filmmaker on Evangelicals, Bolsonaro & Trump’s Tariff Threat; “Economy of Genocide”: U.S. Sanctions U.N. Expert Who Reports on Corporate Profits from Israel’s Gaza War

From New York, this is Democracy Now. I saw in the park today look like a city under siege, under armed occupation. And I have to tell you, spending many years traveling into conflict areas, you know, it's the way the city, it's the way a city looks before a coup. From immigration agent swarming MacArthur Park in L.A. to a Chicago museum ahead of the Barrio Arts Festival. We'll look at how communities are dealing with the immigration crackdown. Then, as President Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Brazilian products,

unless a corruption case against former Brazilian President Bolsonaro is dropped, We'll speak with Brazilian director Petra Costa, her new film, Apocalypse, in the Tropics. I want to be a pastor of a generation that will change history. In the last 40 years, evangelicals have grown from five to more than 30% of Brazil's population, a rapid religious shift molded into an unprecedented political force. And finally, the U.S. sanctions Francesca and, Abanesi, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Palestinian territories. If the genocide has not stopped, it's not just because there has always been an economy of

the occupation. It's because the economy of the occupation has turned into an economy of genocide. And so there have been people and organizations that have profited from the violence, the killing, the maiming, the destruction in Gaza. We'll speak with Francesca Albanese about the U.S. sanctions and her new report from economy of occupation to economy of genocide. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace report by Amy Goodman. Israel's unrelenting slaughter in Gaza has killed at least.

at least 55 Palestinians so far today, including children. This comes as Gaza's doctors are warning of even more imminent deaths as hospitals run out of fuel due to Israel's blockade. This is Dr. Mohamed Abou-Samiyah, Director of Al-Shifha Hospital. We have 13 patients in intensive care, most of them on ventilators, and we have around 100 premature babies in Gaza City hospitals whose lives are in serious risk. Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital.

The lab and blood banks will shut down. The blood units and the refrigerators will spoil. The hospital will cease to be a place of healing and will become a graveyard for those inside. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Education Ministry reports at least 18,000 243 students and school staff have been killed in more than 31,000 others wounded in Gaza and the occupied West Bank since October 2020. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Washington, D.C. After two days of meetings with President Trump and congressional leaders, Netanyahu's departure came without any announcement of a Gaza ceasefire deal. President Trump said after the talks, there's a very good chance Israel and Hamas will

agree to a deal on a 60-day truce in the next two weeks. But Hamas officials say several obstacles remain, including guarantees of a lasting ceasefire, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the free flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Meanwhile, the Trump administration's imposed sanctions on U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Abenazi over her report naming dozens of companies she found have been profiting from Israel's occupation in Gaza. Amnesty International blasted these sanctions against Albanese as a, quote, shameless and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice, unquote. Francesca Albanese will join us herself later in the broadcast. Israel says it intercepted a missile strike by Yemen's Houthi group targeting Ben-Gurian airport earlier today. This comes as Houthi fighters escalate their attacks on Israel over its war on Gaza.

A Houthi strike on a Red Sea commercial vessel Tuesday is now believed to have killed four people with 11 people missing. Six of those are believed to be in Houthi hands. A new ship from the Freedom Flotilla coalition is planning to set sail from Italy Sunday in hopes of breaking the Gaza siege. Chris Smalls, founder of Amazon's first U.S. Labor Union, has announced he'll join the journey aboard an aid ship named the Handala. Meanwhile, a Spanish passenger who traveled on the Madeleine last month,

has filed a war crime's complaint against Israel over its violent raid on June 8th of the Gaza-bound aid ship while in international waters. President Trump said Wednesday the U.S. will impose a 50% tariff on copper. imports beginning October August 1st, as he threatened a new wave of tariffs on seven more countries. These include tariffs of 20% in the Philippines, 30% for Libya and Iraq, unless they can make a deal with his White House before the end of the month. With the latest threats, Trump has given 22 countries until the end of July to make a deal. Trump slapped the steepest levy on Brazil, partly in retribution for what Trump called a witch hunt against former President

Jayir Bolsonaro, who's currently facing trial for attempting a coup after losing the election to President Luis Anasio Lula de Silva in 2022. In response, Lula rejected any, quote, interference or threats, unquote, by the U.S. Only two countries so far, Vietnam and the U.K., have struck trade deals with Trump ahead of his August 1st deadline. The EU this week said it hopes to agree on a deal in the coming days. We'll speak with Brazilian film director Petra Costa about the 50% tariffs that are being threatened against Brazil unless they drop the corruption case against Bolsonaro. Separately on Wednesday, President Trump met with leaders of five African nations, he said, were likely to be spared by tariffs, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal.

During a working lunch, Trump praised Liberian president, Joseph Boakai, for speaking, quote, such good English. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where? Were you educated? Where? In Liberia? Yes. Well, that's very interesting. It's beautiful English. English is the official language of Liberia. The Liberian president didn't return the compliment.

Russia launched a barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine's capital overnight, killing at least two people and wounding 16 others. The attack sparked fires across Kiev with damage to residences, vehicles, and warehouses. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the bombardment a clear escalation of terror by Moscow. Meanwhile, CNN's revealed, Donald Trump told a private gathering of wealthy donors last year that he once sought to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine by threatening to, quote, bomb the blank out of Moscow, unquote, though Trump used an expletive. The revelation came in audio tapes recorded at fundraisers in New York and Florida.

Trump claimed he made a similar threat against Chinese President Xi Jinping, over a potential invasion of Taiwan, saying the U.S. is prepared to bomb Beijing. In immigration news, the Bishop of San Bernardino in Southern California has told his diocese of one million Roman Catholic parishioners that they can skip mass on Sundays over fears of federal immigration raids. In Arizona, immigration courts have begun distributing flyers warning immigrants to self-deport. The documents are written in English and Spanish and produced by the Justice Department. They appear to target immigrants without lawyers and have even been presented to people who've won their immigration cases. Meanwhile, advocates are demanding the release of a Phoenix musician

and artists with cancer who's been jailed by ICE for five months, even though she's a permanent, lawful resident who's lived in the U.S. for over a quarter of a century. Arbella Yari Rodriguez-Marquez has languished at the Eloy Detention Center since February when she was detained by immigration. authorities on her way back from Mexico and stripped of a residency by an immigration judge. Her partner says Yari has lost 55 pounds due to inadequate medical care. She said, quote, I am worried that if she's not released, Yari will be the next death in Eloy Detention Center, unquote. Meanwhile, community leaders and officials in Chicago have condemned the presence of federal

immigration agents at the City's National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture Tuesday. the museum's scheduled to host an arts festival over the weekend amidst mounting fears, ICE could target the event as well as other upcoming cultural events celebrating Chicago's Latinx communities. We'll have more on this story after headlines. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to allow Florida to enforce a state law, making it a crime for undocumented immigrants to enter or remain in Florida. Wednesday's brief unsigned order leaves in place a U.S. district judge's ruling blocking Florida from allowing local police officers to arrest people based on their immigration status.

The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the Supreme Court's order, writing, quote, this ruling affirms what the Constitution demands, that immigration enforcement is a federal matter and that no one should be stripped of their liberty without due process, unquote. Another searing heat wave is gripping Europe the third so far this season. On Tuesday, Greek authorities closed the Acropolis to visitors and barred out work as temperature soared. Firefighters have been battling wildfires in Greece, Spain and France, as well as in Turkey and Syria in the southern French city of Marseilles. Fire is injured at least 100 people and temporarily forced the international airport to shut down. This is a Marseille resident

whose home was damaged. We only have one planet. France behaves as if we have two and a half, even though we only have one. So we have to change our way of living. We have to change. We have to our mindset. We have to learn wisdom because we are currently scheduling our end. And there is everything else that we do not see here. The squirrels, all the animals that I saw every day, which are dead, and which will take decades to come back if they come back at all. This is also an ecocide. A report this week found some 2300 people died of heat-related causes across 12 European cities during the last heat wave that started the end of June. Scientists attributed 1,500 of those deaths directly to the climate crisis.

And people and authorities are continuing to look for more people, though no survivor in the Texas flash floods has been found since last Friday. That's another climate-related news. In Kenya, the death toll from a major anti-government protest on Monday has risen to at least 31 people. More than 100 others were injured and over 530 arrested amidst the police crackdown. Monday's rally marked the 35th anniversary of a pro-democracy uprising and came as part of ongoing demonstrations over police brutality and corruption with protesters demanding President William Ruto stepped down. President Ruto Wednesday said police are free to shoot protesters in the legs. And Abdullah Ocelan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan.

and Workers' Party, or PKK, has announced an end to the group's arms struggle against Turkey and a full transition to democratic politics. Ochelan's message came in a previously recorded video, which was released Wednesday. The PKK movement and its national liberation strategy, which emerged as a reaction to the denial of the existence of the Kurds and thus aimed at setting up a separate state has been dissolved. The existence of the Kurds has been recognized, therefore the basic aim has been achieved. What has been done is a voluntary transition from the phase of armed struggle to the phase of democratic politics and law. This is not a loss, but it has to be regarded as a historical

gain. This follows Abdullah-Ochilan's historic call in February for the PKK to disarm. The PKK was founded in 1978 and launched an insurgency against Turkey in 1984, but later renounced its separatist goals. The 40-year conflict is estimated to a killed more than 40,000 people. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now.com. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

And I'm Narmine Sheikh. Welcome to our lists as and viewers across the country and around the world. From immigration agents swarming MacArthur Park in Los Angeles to a Chicago museum ahead of a cultural festival, we'll begin today looking at how communities are dealing with the immigration crackdown. On Monday, at least 90 heavily armed federal immigration agents, some on horseback, staged a dramatic sweep on a Los Angeles public park, inflaming tensions in a city already on edge from the Trump administration's mass raids. Mayor Karen Bass arrived on the scene where she told agents to leave MacArthur Park,

a popular public space in a largely immigrant and working class neighborhood, where many children were playing. Activists and community members, some who'd been tipped off about the sweep, were seen. repelling the agents, yelling insults at the armed and masked men, some hurling fruit towards them. Mayor Bass later condemned the incident. While I was on the way, though, I got alerted that there was a ice operation, military intervention, who knows, at McArthur Park. I turned around. We went to the park. I could see a helicopter in the air. I think it was a Black Hawk helicopter, and I saw military tanks. It was the custom and border patrol, and it might have been military on the periphery. To me, this is another example of the administration ratcheting up

chaos by deploying what look like a military operation in an American city. So what I saw in the park today looked like a city under siege, under armed occupation, and I have to tell you, spending many years traveling into conflict areas, you know, it's the way the city, it's the way a city looks before a coup. This comes as the Department of Homeland Security says ICE and Border Patrol agents have detained nearly 3,000 people in Los Angeles since June 6. For more, we're joined by Vladimir Cardasco. He is director of climate justice at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, known as Churla. He was one of the first responsible. who went to the park and has been at other ice raids. In a moment, Vlad, we're going to go to

Chicago to find out what happened in the last few days. But we want to start with these immigration agents on horseback. You were one of the first in the park. Explain what took place. Yeah, I would also like to provide a little bit of context that this is not only 33 days into the siege in L.A. by federal enforcement, it was also the exact six-month anniversary of the recent wildfires that impacted the same city. The Eaton Fire claimed 19 lives, and out of those 1990 percent were black families, and still, to this day, they're struggling to recover. And instead of federal aid and assistance, you know, what we're getting is now the terrorization of these federal agents. So yeah, I live nearby MacArthur Park, and I

heard the, I first felt the vibration, and then I heard this deep rumbling, and that was a heavy military helicopter circling Korea Town, a little Bangladesh, MacArthur Park area. This is a mostly immigrant working class community. So it is clearly, it was clearly evidently from just my first arrival in the park, that this is a highly orchestrated, a distraction, a display. There was no real investigation or arrest or operations. When I arrived, the National Guard, the National Guardsmen and officers looked kind of dejected and unclear of like what they were really doing there. And the CBP officers, the Federal enforcement officers were already agitated. They were coming in, right, with this vicious

energy against the community. At one point, one officer had even had to be pulled back by their vest, and this person was carrying a machine gun. And I'm like, if this person with a gun, federally trained officer with a gun, is already coming into the community agitated, I can't imagine the horrors that are going to be coming forward if this continues, right? This park is a community park, a hub, vendors, there were children in the park right before this enforcement happened. So really, it was just bizarre to see as just being in my community that is a normal, what should be a normal day buzzing with people, was a desolate park filled with military officers. And yeah, similarly how it has been described,

it felt like an occupation of L.A. And this isn't just about immigrants. The heat map that Chirla has put out of immigration enforcement within June has shown that the highest concentration of enforcement has been in black and brown communities. So this is destabilizing not only immigrant communities. This is destabilizing black communities. This is destabilizing our city's economy. And now with this proportion, this purported idea of safety,

now we are really less secure because the only gang roaming around LA kidnapping people is the federal agents. And out of the, my God, nearly 3,000 people kidnapped by ICE, we are barely in touch with 400. We're being able to track 400 given that families are reaching out, hitting up the rapid response line. But it's really because of community outreach that we've been able to. to identify those folks. Federal enforcement agents are making it extremely difficult for even attorneys or family members to access folks that have been detained, folks that are detained, family members are reaching out to us because they're missing. So we don't even know if they're in the system and then when we do make the effort to look for them, that's how we've been able

to find them. And out of the 400 we're tracking, we're in touch, we've been able to get in touch with even a fraction of that. So this is really a detrimental move on American values and the rights of all people. Vlad, let's go to Chicago where staff members of the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture

confronted federal agents Tuesday. Museum officials, say Homeland Security vehicles and federal agents mostly in plain clothes, came to the museum Tuesday around 4 p.m. and refuse their request to show them a warrant or any identification. Footage from museum surveillance cameras shows two agents entered the museum and asked to use the bathroom before they walked around the museum. This all comes before the museum is set to host the Barrio Arts Fest this weekend.

Amid mounting fears, ICE could target the event, as well as other upcoming cultural events celebrating Chicago's Latinx communities. After the agents left, museum officials joined lawmakers at an important. emergency press conference. This is Illinois Congress member Dillia Ramirez. And I want to be sure that it's here, whether it's Vanu Fest, Colombian Fest, Mexican Independence Day parade, Fandera, when we have our festival at the beginning of Labor Day, the people here will continue to stand in solidarity. And here's what we're also going to do.

We're going to make sure that the city and the state level, you're going to legislate, when we can't put the state in this, same way on the federal level. And then we're going to also make sure that our attorney general has a support and others and bring legal action and elevating them because what this administration is doing is violating the Constitution. So the Department of Homeland Security responded in a statement to Congress member Ramirez, who we just heard in museum officials, writing, quote, false. The Department of Homeland Security did not target the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture on July 8th, HSI, Chicago's Financial Crimes Task Force, FCTF, staged and held a quick briefing

in the museum's parking lot in advance of an enforcement action related to a narcotics investigation, DHS wrote. Congresswoman Ramirez then responded to DHS in a statement saying, quote, once again, agents of DHS, and let's be clear that HSI agents work within ICE and are agents of DHS should identify themselves like every law enforcement official is required to do. And in case DHS Secretary Christine Nome and DHS's spokesperson forgot, the Office of Homeland Security Investigations, HSI, is under ICE according to their own website, Homeland Security Investigations ICE, Ramirez said.

For more, we're joined in Chicago by Veronica Ocasio, Director of Education and Programming, at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture. Welcome to Democracy Now. Let me remind everyone that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. If you can talk about what this means, what happened on Tuesday to your museum. Yes, let me first start by thanking you for having me on the show. And I also want to stand in solidarity with Los Angeles and denounce all of ISIS efforts there. we stand strongly with our brothers and sisters in L.A.

What happened yesterday was ice came into our parking lot, swarmed our parking lot, and to correct the record, it was from 3 o'clock. It started at 3 o'clock until approximately 5 o'clock. And it was little by little they started trickling in until they overtook the parking lot. At that point, our staff went out because we were still open and operating with visitors in the building and asked to identify themselves. Few officers walked away and one said Homeland Security. That was it.

And she asked for their purpose of being there and overtaking our parking lot without speaking with us or granting them permission as we are private property. They said they had the right to be there because they were the law. And at that point, she got scared and was intimidated by their aggressive tone. She immediately went inside and formed the rest of the staff where they stood on standby to see what was about to happen, if anything. They were not sure because, again, they didn't present a warrant. They didn't present any identification. And I just want to say their statement false, we say facts.

We have facts. We know that they were there to intimidate us because that's what actually happened. They intimidated our staff and community. But where they got it wrong is they obviously are under, estimating the power of the Latino and the Puerto Rican community. We come together unified when people try to bully and intimidate us. And that's what happened when they walked in to use the restroom. Again, our staff was compliant because they were not sure if they had the authority to deny them entries since they said they were Homeland Security officers. And as they walked in,

they looked at the facility and then used the restroom and left. Then they proceeded to tell our staff that they were going to stay on our parking lot past our closing hours. We have a gate that we locked to secure our building. And our staff told, I'm sorry, you cannot. You have to leave. Second time, they're asked to leave. And they refused to leave. And at that point, one of our staff members told them, if you choose to stay, your cars will be locked in and you could pick them up tomorrow because we are closing the gate. At that point, that is when they left. Are you concerned that people will not come out to the Barrio Arts Festival, concerned that they could be arrested if you had these immigration agents, whether HSI, weather ICE, etc, asking for the exits and the entrances to be able to inspect them so that they could make arrest of undocumented people? Yes, of course, that's always a concern.

however we are prepared. We have been proactive since this incident. We will have attorneys on site, immigration attorneys, immigration advocates. We will also amplify and have more security than we expected to have. And we want to encourage people to come because we cannot let this administration's fear tactics drive our day to date. And this festival is meant to support all our local artists and all our small businesses, the backbone of our community. And again, they're trying to ensure that people don't come, that people have fear and are living in the shadows. And we're not going to allow that.

We're asking people, please come up, show up. You're going to be safe. We are going to ensure your safety. We have protocols. We have an emergency preparedness plan in place. We are ready to receive you and we're ready to celebrate the great contributions of our artisans and our artisans. and our artists to our community.

Veronica Ocasio, we want to thank you so much for being with us from the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, speaking to us from Chicago, and Vladimir Carrasco, director of climate justice at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, L.A., known as Churla, speaking to us from Los Angeles. Next up, Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Brazilian products unless a corruption case against the former Brazilian,

President Bolsonaro is dropped. We'll speak with Brazilian director Petra Costa, her new film, Apocalypse in the Tropics. Stay with us. I grito of voice silenciated

I'm the I'm the I'm the memory olivated I'm

material resistant with rabia desprecated with Contrault against everything, against everything, by the Puerto Rican singer and songwriter Ila, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org.

The Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermin-Shech. President Trump issued a new wave of tariff. threats on Wednesday. Twenty-two countries now have until August 1st to make a deal or face levies of at least 20%. The steepest tariff threat is against Brazil at 50%, partly as retribution for what Trump calls the witch hunt against former President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is currently facing trial in Brazil for his alleged participation in a coup attempt following his electoral defeat in 2022 to Luis Anasio Lula de Silva, the current president.

In a letter announcing the tariffs, President Trump calls the trial an international disgrace and says, quote, this trial should not be taking place. It's a witch hunt that should end immediately, unquote. President Lula de Silva responded by rejecting what he called interference or threats by the United States. For more, we're joined now by Oscar-nominated Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa, who's made two films about Brazilian politics. She was nominated for an Oscar for the film The Edge of Democracy. Her new documentary that is being released by Netflix next week, but she'll be at the Paris Theater in New York tonight, traces the rise of Christian nationalism and evangelism in Brazil and its power in politics. This is the trailer for Apocalypse in the Tropics.

We've added English voices over where needed for our radio listeners. This city was designed as a vision of Brazil's future. And the cement that held it together was a faith. Not in God, but instead in the equally abstract ideas of progress and democracy. God, Homeland, family, and freedom. I want to be a pastor of a generation that will change. history. In the last 40 years, evangelicals have grown from five to more than 30% of Brazil's population,

a rapid religious shift molded into an unprecedented political force. What really influences my vote is my religion. We are the absolute majority in this country. What made socialism fail was denying religion. With truth, we're building a new politics in Brazil. Bolsonaro likes talking to me because I'm frank with it. Brazil above everything, God above everyone. That's democracy.

But democracy isn't just the will of the majority. It's also protection of the minority. Democracy is the absolute majority's will. He's turning the church into a political pulpit. Here we'll destroy them. Freedom of speech isn't freedom to attack. Democracy isn't anarchy. What will happen to Brazilian democracy?

The Brazilian nation is. living a new moment. The trailer for Apocalypse in the Tropics. For more, we're joined by its director, Petra Costa. She is a Brazilian filmmaker and actress. So this film hits at a pivotal time. as President Trump goes after Brazil every which way for hosting the BRIC summit with Lula in the lead to this trial that's taking place. And Bolsonaro was also at the center of this film, as well as the rise of

evangelicals in Brazil. A lot of remarkable parallels to the United States, Bolsonaro known as the Trump of the Tropics. Can you talk about who Bolsonaro is, this tempted coup and where. this whole religious backing comes from? Yes, so Bolsonaro was a congressman when I made my film, The Hedge of Democracy, which we spoke about here, Amy, a few years ago. He was one of the most far-right congressman who was defending the military dictatorship, declared his vote against Dilma at the time, defending the torture of Dilma, Roussef. This is Gilma, the president.

The first female president of Brazil. Then he decided to run for president and did not have the working class vote in the beginning. He gained that by declaring himself somewhat evangelical, making an alliance with the pastor, who's the protagonist of our film Malafaya, Silas Malafaya, a prominent televangelist. And in this marriage between religion and politics, Bolsonaro was very useful for a growing movement in Brazil. that comes from the United States, which it's called Dominion Theology, that has as a plan the takeover of the three branches of government, the judiciary, the legislative, and the executive. We had the chance of filming with Malafaya this pastor during the last five years.

And during that time, what was fascinating to see was his power over the president only grew. And Bolsonaro became a vessel, an instrument, to executing this. Dominion Theologist Plan, which is very similar to what is happening in the United States with Trump and his allies, such as Mac Huckabee, Peter Haggsooth, and Huckabee, very significant. He is now the U.S. ambassador to Israel, and the last actions of Netanyahu in the United States yesterday, the Israeli prime minister, were to meet with the evangelical Christians of the United States supporting him in Israel. And in this film, we also trace the origin of this evangelical apocalyptic and sometimes Zionist thought that believes that waging war in the Middle East

will accelerate the second coming of Christ, a fascinating theology that is really shaping our geopolitics at this moment and is very understudied for its relevance. The film is an investigation into that, into how this apocalyptic theology is shaping Brazilian politics at this moment, and really making our elections become less a discussion of programs, of plans for the future, but holy wars. And Petra, you do, in the film, I mean, you take also like a historical look. It's not just about what's happened immediately. You document, for example, the visit of the American evangelist.

Billy Graham, who came to Brazil, I think, for the first time in 1960 and was met by massive audiences. So if you could talk about that, what was the appeal he had then? I mean, we're talking about 70 years ago, right? Over 60 years ago. And how that movement built from then. Well, Brazil had one of the greatest Catholic nations in the world. And in the 60s and 70s, a movement called liberation theology was growing and had many thoughts about social justice of empowering the poor and the oppressed in Brazil. But that movement was encountered with much antipathy by the likes of Kissinger and also the lobbying group, the family, also known as the Fellowship in the United States,

which thought as part of the Cold War project, it was interesting to send evangelical missionaries to Brazil against the alleged communist threat. Billy Graham went to Brazil, the dictatorship decided to show his cult, his rally or service in the Maracana, the biggest stadium in Brazil, in all channels at the time. Evangelicalism grew. Since then, when I was born in the 80s, it was 5% of the population were evangelical. Today, there's 26% of the population. It's one of the fastest growing religious shifts in the history of mankind. And it's not problematic at all, and it's actually delivering social services and spiritual help and psychological help to many of Brazilians, and faith is something that we can't

talk about, and there's no reason to interfere or to discuss people's faith, only when it decides to have a plan that will basically erode our democracy and one of the greatest achievements of modern society, which is the separation of church and state. As we wrap up, and we're going to do part two and put it online at DemocracyNow.org, these latest developments, Trump's saying, drop the trial of Bolsonaro for attempting a coup. Interestingly, here the attempted coup, as many people describe it, was January 6th. In Brazil, it was January 8th. Or they'll be slapped with, you'll be slapped, your country, with 50%

tariffs. In this part one of the discussion, just wrap up with your response to that. Our film really traces these coup attempts that Bolsonaro weighs during the four years of his presidency when he said he would never recognize the result of the elections if he lost, and the January 8th attacks, which were very much inspired by the January 6th attacks. The relationship between Trump and Bolsonaro is not new. They've been exchanging, they have been exchanging with Bannon, Bolsonaro's sons, Eduardo, left his seat in office in the parliament and came to the United States to lobby for his father, who is currently on trial for the coup attempt that if was successful, the plan was to assassinate Lula, his vice president, and the

Supreme Court justice. So Brazil has to finish this trial. Our courts are independent. And Bolsonaro, as any citizen, has the right to a fair trial, but without foreign interference. Well, we're going to leave it there now. I also want to talk after the show in our web exclusive about your fascinating interview with Lula, having coffee with him, talking about the rise of the evangelicals in Brazil. Petra Costa is the Oscar-nominated Peabody Award-winning Brazilian filmmaker and director of the new film Apocalypse in the Tropic next week on Netflix. Her previous film, The Edge of Democracy, tonight. She'll be at the Paris Theater in New York City. Next up, an update on the new U.S. sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur

on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory, the occupied Palestinian territory, will also speak with her about her new report from economy of occupation to economy of genocide. Stay with us. nobody wants you nobody cares nobody likes you nobody dares to extend a greeting a connecting glance life is just a jaded game to them they will give it a chance but you know and i know that the galaxy is that the galaxy is all around us, and life will flow as long as long as the grass grows and the water runs. And while I'm here on Earth, freedom is free by the Los Angeles Ben, Chicano Batman, performing at our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Nermyn Chey. The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese. Over her report naming dozens of companies, she says, are profiting from Israeli occupation and genocide in Gaza.

Secretary of State, Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a social media post Wednesday stating, quote, Albanese's campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated, Rubio wrote. Amnesty International blasted the sanctions as a, quote, shameless, and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice. Francesca Albanese will join us in a minute. The sanctions were filed after she gave a presentation last week to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and called on states to impose an arms embargo

and cut off trade and financial ties with Israel, which she alleged was, quote, responsible for one of the cruelest genocides in modern history. If the genocide has not stopped, it's not just because there has always been an economy of the occupation. It's because the economy of the occupation has turned into an economy of genocide. And so there have been people and organizations that have profited from the violence, the killing, the maiming, the destruction in Gaza, and in other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory, because it's not that the Palestinians in the West Bank and his Jerusalem, are having the happiest time of their life, as we speak.

In the past 20 months, while the Israeli army and accompanied by settlers was devastating Palestinian lives and landscapes, the Tel Aviv stock exchange soared by 213 percent, amassing over 220 billions in market gains, including 76.8 billion U.S. dollars, in the past month alone. So clearly, for some, genocide is profitable. For more, we're joined by Francesca Abenesi herself, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Her landmark report is headlined from economy of occupation

to economy of genocide. Francesco, we last spoke to you in our New York City studio. You're now in the capital of... Slovenia. You've just held a news conference. This news has just come out in the last day that the U.S. is going to sanction you, the U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory. Trump has already sanctioned top international criminal court officials like the ICC chief prosecutor, Kareem Khan. The ICC has come out with an arrest warrant for both. both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the former Israeli defense minister.

Can you respond to the sanctions against you and what they mean? Hi, Amy. Hi, Narmin. Thank you for having me with you. Would I respond, it seems that this administration is quite allergic to justice, isn't it? I woke up this morning. I could take my shower. I could talk to my kids. I could meet the wonderful people of Slovenia institutions and ordinary citizens alike without the sound of drones. Yes, I skipped breakfast, but I chose it. I was not starving. I'm not starving.

And this is the situation of the people of Gaza. This is what we need to talk about, because what the US is doing, I mean, people can make their own assessment of it. is distracting us, is trying to distract us from where our focus should be. What's happening to the Palestinians in what remains, the little that remains of their tormented land, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. And could you talk, Francesca, about the fact that this announcement came on, while Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C., in fact, his third visit to the United States. States since Trump came into office in January?

Yeah, in fact, I should correct it. It's not that this administration is allergic to justice. It's attracted to injustice more than justice. Because the ICC wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't belong to Washington, D.C. He belongs to the Hague or anywhere else where he can be prosecuted. as the ICC has requested. Look, I'm more than, I mean, I know the United States is not a member to the Rome Statute,

has imposed the sanctions on the ICC, and technically the argument to impose the sanctions against me is that I cooperate with the ICC. Surely so, like anyone who wants justice, the ICC is based on the Rome Statute and I'm a proud Italian, happy that it was my country, capital of my country to give the name to the stated of the International Criminal

Law Court. I mean, this is also the legacy of World War II and the Holocaust. Universal justice starts with that. So look at the paradox. But again, I'm more horrified than my own country, Italy, and Greece

and France, three member states of the Rome Statute, allowed ICC wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Benjamin Netanyahu to fly with his airplane toward Washington, the sea, over their souls. Because this is unacceptable. They should have not given concession, such a concession. He must be arrested.

So, Francesca, let's go to your report, the UN report, from economy of occupation to economy of genocide. When we had you on earlier this year, sorry, last year in October, you were working on a report. the report had just come out on genocide as colonial erasure. You've also issued another report, anatomy of a genocide. So explain why and when you moved your focus to the economic beneficiaries of what's been happening in Gaza. Yeah. Look, I decided to investigate the private sector in February, 2023.

When I went to Norway, and for the first time, I saw what many had already been. investigating and denouncing the BDS movement, don't buy into the occupation, Profundo, Somo, who profits? The fact that there were people making business in the, you know, in the system, within the system of the military occupation that Israel was maintaining over the occupied Palestinian territory. Now, it really, as someone has said, only a lawyer can take ages to realize the corruption,

economic, the political economics of the occupation. But however, times, I mean, two years later, I was into the investigation of all the companies that I had started to collect information about two years later, because in the middle it was a genocide, I needed to make sense of the military assault that since October 2023, Israel had launched against the Gaza Strip while also accelerating the annexation and the ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. And as I collected together with my team and all the actors that contributed,

the lawyers, investigative journalists and others who contributed to the acquisition of information that I've verified, to the setup of a database of 1,000 entities, of which I just collected those eminent cases that help illustrate the system. So, Amy, my report is not to be read as a duplicate of the database that the UN has set up years ago and is updating. It's illustrative of a system.

An economy of occupation, Israel would have not been able to maintain the military occupation without the support, the means, the weapons, the machinery, the technology, the legitimacy that has come, including from the military occupation. The pension funds, including the Norwegian pension funds, the legitimacy of the universities, and so on and so forth. I want to go to last month, Norway's largest pension fund, what you're referring to, known as KLP, announced it would no longer invest in two companies that sell equipment to the Israeli military, the pension fund managing the savings of about 900,000 Norwegian municipal workers. Democracy now spoke to Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP, about how they came to the decision. KLP, as Norvest Lodest Pension Company, has decided to exclude companies Oshkosh Corporation and Tyson Group

due to their sales of weapons to the Israeli military. KLP learned from a report conducted by the UN High Commissioner Human Rights that several companies were supplying weapons or equipment to the Israeli Defence Force and these weapons are being used in Gaza. On the basis of this information, KLP has done a thorough assessment of the companies, but also engaged in dialogue with them in order to understand what kind of due diligence they have performed.

And like in all other situations, companies have an independent duty to exercise due diligence in order to avoid complicity. But based on our assessment, these companies have failed to demonstrate any due diligence, at all. And these companies are also having a long-standing collaboration with IDF and weapons delivered have continued after the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Exclusion is an important tool for us to reduce KLP's association with unacceptable conditions that are ongoing or likely to occur in

the future. But exclusion is also a way to hold companies accountable because we all need to respect international law and humanitarian law. So that was Kieran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP. Meanwhile, one of the world's largest shipping companies, Maersk, has recently announced it'll divest from companies linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank following a sustained pressure campaign called Mask Off Maersk that was led by Palestinian youth movement. This is Najat Tanoos, international coordinator of the campaign. This is a huge win for the movement. Mersk is the Danish logistics giant. They're one of the largest companies on the planet.

And they are the first logistics company ever to cease transportation of settlement goods, all settlement products, into the Israeli settlements and out of the Israeli settlements. I think that this is a large step, a first step, to isolating the Israeli settlements from the global economy, which decreases their ability to terrorize. the Palestinian people to annex more land and to continue to break international law. We also were able to ascertain this win, not because we demanded divestment from the settlements, but because we lifted the political ceiling and we demanded a people's arms embargo. Mursk is still complicit in the transshipment of arms and weapons components of military

cargo to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. they're endemic to the supply chain of the F-35 bomber, which is one of the most expensive and deadliest weapons on the market. And that's why Mersk, this news came the same week as the Francesca Albanese report, which details at length multiple corporations that are complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people and profiting off of that genocide. Mersk is one of them. So that's Nadja Tenoos of the Palestine youth movement.

Francesca Albanese, as you listen to both women from Norway and taking on the Danish company, Maersk, if you can talk about the other companies that you've been targeting, and if these U.S. sanctions are going to change your approach. You know, let me share an anecdote because this is really telling. I've been engaging with a major newspaper who refused to report on my report. because it was not accurate, I mean, it was not accurate, not solid enough. Not solid enough because I had used as a source, this particular report, the work that this youth movement has done.

And you see the condescending attitude of the West and the saviourism that we carry. The youth movement is associated with lack of expertise. I'm so glad that the world is. changing and we are in the hands with this young generation, we are in better hands. What I want to reflect on as answering your question, Amy, is something that Nadia said, meaning it's the endemic. There are certain services that companies are providing that go to something that is endemic, to the illegal occupation, to the apartheid structure that Israel has maintained over the years, over the Palestinians, and now has even turned

genocidal. And it's the fact that when people have concentrated their attention without any result on settlements, settlements are clearly at the heart of the problem, but they're entrenched in the Israeli system. The universities have been legitimizing and giving even means they've been transferring funds and endowments to the Israeli occupation and very ideology of erasure of the Palestinian people. This is why I say there is no neutral sector when it comes to when it comes to Israel as the state, which has maintained for 57 years and a lawful occupation. And when you look at the water sector, the electricity, for example, there is one grid, there is one way of exploiting, extracting and exploiting Palestinian resources

and then depriving the Palestinians of them. This is why today I do not call for sanctions on individuals and on companies producing in the settlements. This is the past century. This is the old Bible. This is what we have to do today is to act like intelligent people. and realize that if Israel is accused in different international proceedings of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide, it's Israel as a state, which is to face the consequences, including sanctions and cutting economic ties with Israel as a state.

So Francesca Albanese, we just have 30 seconds. But if you could talk about, and then we'll continue with you after the program for a taped show, if you could say to what extent you were inspired by the divestment campaign, against apartheid South Africa. You spoke about that at the UN. Certainly I was, of course, but not, no, I mean, no much. I was more inspired. I mean, not as I was not inspired. It's just that what led me was the need to understand the occupation and the apartheid.

And then the campaign made sense to me against apartheid South Africa and against apartheid Israel. It takes time to a lawyer. Francesca Avanese, I want to thank you for being with us. Please stay with us. We're going to do a post show, a web-exclusive, posted at DemocracyNow.org. UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. We'll link to your report from economy of occupation to economy of genocide. She was speaking to us from the U.S. First Ladies, Melania Trump's country, Slovenia.

I'mini Goodman with Nermaine Shea.