Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-10-05 Monday

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Democracy Now! Monday, October 5, 2026

From New York, this is Democracy Now. The result is unexpected. We never get everything we want. I must admit that I was convinced that I was going to win on the first round. I am very happy about the real possibility that three weeks from now, Brazil will give a definitive answer that it wants a modern government, a government with fewer ministries, a government that will restore democracy. In Brazil, the race between present Luis Inasio Lula de Silva and far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro

is headed to a runoff. If elected, Flavio Bolsonaro has pledged to grant amnesty to his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest after being convicted of plotting a coup in 2022. We'll go to Rio de Janeiro. Then I am Jane Doe. That's become the rallying cry as outrage grows over Cornell University's handling of allegations that a female student was raped by seven fraternity members in 2024. And we'll go to the occupied West Bank to speak with the Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro.

He was detained by the Israeli military for over seven hours Friday for document. tormenting settler violence. Much for caring and for leading a campaign to release me from the Israeli military detention. I was ill-treated. I was detained illegally by the Israeli soldiers and attacked by Israeli settlers. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

Brazil's presidential election is heading to a runoff between current Brazilian president, Luis Nacio Lula de Silva, and far-right candidate, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. Millions of Brazilians took to the poll Sunday with Bolsonaro receiving 47 percent of the vote. Lula trailed behind with 45 percent. The two will face off again October 25th. Flavio Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, is the son of the former right-wing president, Jaird Bolsonaro, who is currently serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest after being convicted of plotting a military coup following his 2022 election loss to Lula. This is one of Lula's supporters.

There is a great deal of apprehension. I suppose I didn't expect this. I had high hopes that the election would be decided in the first round in Lula's favor. So it's very hard to see us heading into a runoff trailing someone who is beholden to the United States. Someone who, in our view, has bad plans for Brazil. It's too much hopelessness. After headlines, we'll go to Rio de Janeiro for the latest. The U.S. rushed over the weekend to poll all 12 of its B-1 bombers out of R.A.F. Fairford in southern England. after commanders reportedly received new warnings of an Iran-backed plot targeting the base.

U.S. bombers have flown from the base during the U.S. Israeli war on Iran. The evacuation was so urgent. Some of the bombers and their crews took off before refueling tankers had the chance to support their flights home. At least three planes had landed at their base in South Dakota by Sunday. It comes one week after British police arrested five men who were driving white vans near R.A.F. Fairford. The men were released on bail the next day after authorities found no explosives in the vans. Iran says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the U.S. meets conditions from the interim agreement the two countries reached in Islamabad back in June. During the U.N. General Assembly, Tehran offered to restore.

normal shipping through the strait within seven days if its demands are met. Iran says it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz only if the U.S. ends the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, lifts its naval blockade and sanctions, releases frozen Iranian assets, pays war compensation, recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium, and accepts Iran's role in governing the strait. Iran's foreign ministry denied. reports that Iran had offered U.N. nuclear inspections in exchange for sanctions relief, saying to Iran's focus right now is the straight, not nuclear talks. This is Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Arachchi.

We hope the United States chooses the path of wisdom and reason, but if it once again turns to military options, we are better prepared than before, and we will take whatever measures are necessary to defend ourselves. If it chooses the path of diplomacy, we remain ready. The United States has lost in both war and diplomacy in the past. Yemen, Saudi-backed armed forces announced Sunday the beginning of a major military operation to recapture regions seized by the Iran-backeduthies, including the Yemeni capital of Sana'a. This is Rashad Al-Ali-Imi, president of Yemen's internationally recognized government.

Today I announced the start of military operations, to retake the remaining territory of the Republic and extend the authority of the state and its institutions across all national soil. We have issued directives to the armed and security forces and all military formations to begin executing their assigned tasks according to the approved plan

until the country is liberated from the grip of the terrorist militia. This came as the Houthis claim responsibility for launching a series of ballistic missile and drone attacks on Saudi Aramco sites in Riyadh and the Kureas region of Saudi Arabia over the weekend. They said the attacks were in response to dozens of Saudi-led air and missile strikes on Yemen that lasted for 12 hours. In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed at least five Palestinians, including four women, and an apartment building in Gaza City early on Saturday.

Since last October's so-called ceasefire, 1,400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza. This is Fuad al-Najar, who lost his mother and grandmother in Israeli strikes. The occupation doesn't differentiate between a Christian and a Muslim. It targets Christians before Muslims in Gaza. All of us have lost martyrs, and we have wounded people. In almost every home, you will find someone who is either martyred or injured. In the U.K., the Green Party has voted to classify Zionism as a form of racism,

calling it an ethno-nationalist political project, unquote. The motion also renews the Green Party's call for Britain's labor government to end all arms trade with Israel and backs a single democratic state throughout the historic Palestine. Israel's government condemned the motion as anti-Semitic and accused the Greens of legitimizing terrorism. Israel's foreign minister, Gidon Tsar, said he would bar. Party leader, Zach Polanski, from entering Israel. Polanski did not cast a vote.

Cornell University President Michael Kotlakov says he welcomes an independent investigation over the school's failure to properly respond to reports by a 20-year-old undergraduate student who said she was drugged and gang rape by seven fellow Cornell students, members of the Kai-5 fraternity in 2024. Kotlakov posted this video message on Saturday. In conjunction with our Board of Trustees, I welcome the independent review by an outside law firm into all aspects of Cornell's handling of the 2024 matter, which the board will announce next week. We also support the governor's decision to turn the criminal investigation over to the New York Attorney General. Cornell President Kotlakov is facing mounting calls to run. resign. Meanwhile, Jane Doe's attorney, Thomas Joufra, told CNN stated the union, she's been the target of

multiple threats and harassment. It seems that if you have a complaining witness saying, I'm 100% certain I was raped, that should make it into a report. You had the group chat inviting people to participate in a rape. You had a complaining witness. You had evidence of a crime. And they didn't follow up on it. They didn't include it. And that's very concerning to me. And I'm not a person who believes in cover-ups. But in this case, I feel like there really was a cover-up. We'll have more on this later in the broadcast. Tennessee's prison chief, Frank Strata, stepped down from his position later this month as he faces national backlash after overseeing Krista Pike's botch attempted execution. Pike remains hospitalized in critical condition. And

on a ventilator, unconscious with burns and blisters on both her arms after surviving two doses of pentobarbital. Stratas' resignation comes ahead of an independent investigation into what went wrong. Pikes botched execution was reportedly at least the fifth Strata had supervised across two states since 2022. In Strata's previous role as a prison official in Arizona, CNN reports he oversaw three executions that observers and administrators say may have violated state protocols. In Texas, a federal judge in El Paso Friday blocked further border wall construction inside Big Bend National Park in a decision that was held by environmentalists. Judge Kathleen Cardone said her injunction will remain in place until a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and others is result. and signal the plaintiff's constitutional claims against the border wall expansion are likely to succeed in court.

To see our coverage of the story, go to Democracy Now.org. President Trump named Director of National Intelligence J. Clayton, as the White House's new AIs are, Clayton will lead a new superintelligence force that Trump says will coordinate the government's work on artificial intelligence. This comes as David Robinson, a senior Open AI safety staffer, has resigned and says, Open AI's culture is broken. Writing in the Atlantic magazine, Robinson said, quote, I agree with other recently departed staff that the companies building this technology aren't being nearly careful enough. But I believe we need to look deeper than specific rules or new law.

We need to talk about culture. As the company sprints from one launch to the next, it's failing to achieve the level of care that I believe is needed, he said. Recently, Open AI called off the launch of a new AI model after its own researchers flagged safety problems during internal testing. The company has also halted training on its most powerful models. In Spain, tens of thousands of people marched in Madrid and other Spanish cities over the weekend as protests continue demanding government action on Spain's

worsening housing crisis. Authorities estimated the crowds at 70,000 organizers said a half a million people took part. The protest came a day after opposition lawmakers voted against a housing reform package meant to address public outrage over the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, Madi Carmen from her lifelong home in Madrid. This is a protester. The far right group Nucleonational threatened on social media, and there was a counter protest. Everyone was very nervous and alert, so we set up a security perimeter around the whole camp on top of setting control checks on all axes to avoid any attack.

I think the camp will stay this next week, and let's see next weekend. is a will to resist. Everything is very well organized. I think we'll stay. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez earlier today announced a snap election after right-wing parties in Spain's parliament torpedoed the housing measure. The election is scheduled for November 29th. In France, about 500 high schools are partly or fully closed today after a week of student protests were met by riot police. Thousands of students have taken to the streets across France, including in Paris, Marseille, Nance, and Montpelier, to protest teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, and crumbling school buildings. French authorities have arrested more

than 5,000 people since the movement began. About 85% of them minors, this according to AFP. The student organizers say the government's offered no concrete measures and are calling for more protests Tuesday. This is 17-year-old high schooler, Madeline Landry. It was really difficult to concentrate in the heat, especially when you are in a small classroom with 35 people in it. So it's true that you can very quickly lose concentration. Also, we don't always have fans in every classroom,

so it can get really, really hot. and in some classrooms we're not really allowed to drink water, so that makes things difficult as well. And in India, the youth-led cockroach movement has launched a new wave of nationwide protest demanding the resignation of chief election commissioner, Ganesh Kumar. Critics say a process under his oversight stripped tens of millions of people from India's voter rolls in a move that benefits Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP party. Thousands rallied in Mumbai on Friday after authorities denied them a permit. While in Delhi, police detained at least 700 people, including opposition politicians,

and imposed an internet shutdown. This is a protester in New Delhi. If you are going to stifle freedom of expression in this country, you're stifling democracy. And I don't think the youth of our country will allow this. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

We begin today's show in Brazil, where the presidential race between President Luis Hanassia Lula de Silva and far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro is headed to a runoff. During the first round of voting Sunday, Bolsonaro received 47 percent of the vote. Lula got 45 percent. Bolsonaro is the son of Brazil's former far-right president, J. Bolsonaro, currently under house arrest, serving a 27-year-old. sentence after he was convicted of plotting a military coup in 2022 to overturn Lula's win in that year's election. If elected, Flavio Bolsonaro has pledged to grant amnesty to his father

and others involved in the coup. Flavio has also vowed to strengthen ties to the Trump administration. In Senate races, Bolsonaro's party secured 19 of the 54 Senate seats up for grabs. In total, the right or far right won 34 seats. Flavio Bolsonaro spoke to supporters in the capital, Brasilia. I am very happy about the real possibility that three weeks from now, Brazil will give a definitive answer, that it wants a modern government, a government with fewer ministries, a government that will restore democracy. What I have to say is that Lula is fighting for power. He has already contested seven presidential elections, seven presidential elections, seven, presidential elections. He is concerned about power. I am concerned about Brazil's future.

I am fighting for Brazil. Brazilian President Luis Anasya Lula de Silva addressed supporters in Sao Paulo. The result is unexpected. We never get everything we want. I must admit that I was convinced that I was going to win on the first round. But we have the second round, and the runoff is the moment of truth. It's time to show the true Brazilian picture, because today is the Brazil we want. So starting tomorrow, we're launching a new campaign. Ahead of the elections, a group of 31 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, accusing the Trump administration of being engaged in a, quote, sustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil, unquote.

We go now to Rio de Janeiro, where we're joined by. Rodrigo Nunes, his new book out this week, Anatomy of Disintegration, What Brazil Reveals about the Global Far Right. He's Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a visiting fellow at the University of Essex, UK. Rodrigo Nunes, thanks so much for being with us. First, if you can respond to Flavio Bolsonaro, coming out ahead, 47 to 45% against President Lula. And Lula's even expression of surprise saying he expected to win this round. Of course, then it goes to the next runoff election on October 25th.

Can you talk about what happened in Brazil and its significance? Well, I think anyone who had been following closely the polls and the tendencies in this election would have thought it would be tight, both in the first and in the second round, but everyone really did expect Lula to come marginally ahead of Flavio in the first round. So that was a surprise. Having said that it isn't a surprise that this is a victory for the right. Everyone could tell that they were going to have the majority in Congress, that they were going to come very close to a,

an easy majority in the Senate, which puts them very close to being able to impeach Supreme Court justices, which has been one of their main rallying points in this election. So yes, Flaville coming ahead is a surprise, but everything else, the Congress results, the results in the majority of states that the right has also carried. None of that is really a surprise at this point. Tell us who Flavio Bolsonaro is, the son of the former far-right president. Sorry. I want you to tell us.

I want you to tell us who Flavio Bolsonaro is. But first, let me go back to the current president, Lula, speaking last night criticizing Flavio Bolsonaro. We only have uncertainties with a murky back. and a shadowy past. Nothing suggests a promising future for Brazilian society, either in the biography of the father or the son, and we do not know the details regarding other relatives' biographies. It is a murky biography. There are publications and evidence pointing to very serious suspicions linked to militia, organized crime, and Rio de Janeiro's murders. All of this will become clear, as will his involvement in the founding of Banco Mastor, which led not only to the biggest corruption

case in this country, but also in the biggest orgy involving this country's authorities. If you can respond, Rodrigo Nunes, to what Lula said, and give us the background of Flavio Bolsonaro. So when Flavio was chosen by his father to be the candidate of the far right, not even people in the right expected him to catch as a candidate. Everyone thought he was too weak and inexpressive as a candidate to actually run against someone, a figure as strong figure of the stature of Lula. So even for the right, it was a surprise that his candidacy did become a real thing in the course of the last months. He is the oldest son of the Bolsonaro clan, and he is the more traditional figure among his brothers, who are all in, also in politics.

He is more of an old-style politician rather than a culture warrior like his other brothers and even to some extent his father. and in particular, whereas his dad had very strong ties to the military and dependent on the military a lot for his government, what is most worrying about Blavia Bolsonaro is that there are very well-documented stories connecting him not only to various corruption scandals, including the main corruption scandal that has been talking. talked about in Brazil at the moment, which involves a failed bank that helped, among other things, fund a film on a biopic of Jay Bolsonaro's that many people suspect was actually used as a way

of challenging funds into the campaign and into the lobbying operations that the Bolsonaro family has been doing alongside the U.S. government since last year. But so basically not only he's got several ties to several corruption scandals, but more worryingly, he's got a well-documented history of ties to organized crime in Rio, not only to the paramilitary militias that occupy several parts of Rio, but also lots of people in his political group in Rio are connected to the drug trade. So obviously a victory for him worries several people in Brazil that it would be a victory for organized crime, bringing organized crime to the very top of Brazilian politics. And if you can talk about not only the fact that Flavio Bolsonaro came out ahead, but the fact that the far right and right parties also came out ahead and what this means. And where you think this runoff election will go, who the other candidates were who will now be not part of it,

who might throw their support to or simply their voters will go to either Flavio Bolsonaro or Lula. So another sign of how strong the right is in Brazil at the moment is that, the only candidate on the left was Lula. Everyone else contesting this election is broadly in the right-wing camp or even far right, even farther to the right of Flavio. The tendency is, of course, that most of those votes are going to go to Flavio now. Certainly, the momentum is with him at this moment. He's leaping ahead in the first round. And he, I would expect him to go even farther in the first polls that will come out this week. Certainly, the momentum is all with him.

And it has to be said in a certain way, the momentum has been with the right since 2018. The right wing has managed to, if we understand a cultural revolution to mean shaping the way in which most people understand reality, in which most people see what's happening around them, then you could say that the far right has managed to produce a cultural revolution in Brazil, especially in the south of Brazil, in those areas in which agribusiness is strong, or what you could call the extractive frontier, where you have agribusiness, mining, and so forth. And even in the southeast and even in the peripheries of Brazil,

where lots of people see the far right as promising them, well, if this is all there is, if all we can expect from the future is ever more dog-eat-dog conditions, an ever more competitive struggle of all against, or at least what the far right says is the state will get off our backs. We won't have to, we'll pay less taxes. There'll be less regulations stopping us from doing what we need to do in other to survive. And even at the end of the day, if I remain hyper-exploited, at least there won't be anyone

telling me that I can't make jokes about gay people or there won't be anyone meddling with my private life if I beat my wife up. So there's a very complex portfolio, let's say, of material and psychological compensations that the far right offers. And it has to be said, it's a message that has been working. And even though Lula has been in power for the last four years, he was always dealing with the Congress that was in its majority of the right and far right. He didn't manage to do anywhere near enough to counter the strength of the far right in Brazilian society. And what we see is basically a continuous growth, even though Bolsonaro lost the last elections to Lula. What you can see is just a continuous growth from 2018

until now. And you see that in the way that they've carried most states, that they carried the majority of the Congress and so on. So last week, a group of 31 U.S. Democratic lawmakers, led by Congress members Delia Ramirez, Pramila Jayapal, Jesus Chui Garcia, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accusing the Trump administration of interfering in Brazil's elections. A letter saying over the course of President Trump's second term, we've seen U.S. officials engage in a sustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil. And then goes on to outline the diplomatic economic and political pressure wielded by the Trump administration leading up to the elections. What do you know of whether

there was U.S. interference there? Of course, both Flavio Bolsonaro, his father Jaira Bolsonaro, very close to President Trump, and you have Flavio also promising to pardon his father, who's under house arrest for decades, for involvement in the attempted coup against Lula. So, Amy, I belong to what is called in Brazil, the re-democratization generation, i.e., the people who were born in the very last years of the military regime. And I have to say, I didn't expect in my life to see the level of U.S. interference that we've seen, in these elections. If in the last elections, the US played a very positive role when it very clearly signaled to Jaegov Bolsonaro that it wasn't going to support any coup attempts to overrule

the result of the elections. In these elections, since last year, there's been a clear pattern of US interference, starting with the tariffs imposed on Brazil at the time. of the coup trials that came to an end in September last year. And there was a very open, very explicit activity on the part of one of the Bolsonaro brothers to lobby the U.S. government, to impose those tariffs on Brazil. So we've had more tariffs imposed on Brazil this year. But on top of that, there is another thing that was an object of lobby from the Bolsonaro family, the fact that very recently the US named the two major drug factions in Brazil as terrorist organizations,

which we understand from the pattern that we've seen in places like Colombia, Venezuela, etc., is always a first step, a step in the direction of more intense interference, including potentially military intervention, supposed to be fighting the war on drugs, but in effect is actually interfering in domestic politics and picking sides in domestic politics in countries of the region. Finally, there's also been a pattern of funds being invested both from supporters of President Trump or supporters of the far right in the U.S., but also from the State Department funds that have been directed to political activity in Brazil, which has systematically been political activity on the right to support

the candidacy of Flavio Bolsonaro and his supporters. Flavio Bolsonaro asked Trump to designate two crime groups as terrorist groups. Does this open, as you're talking about more of a U.S. military presence in Brazil, if Bolsonaro wins also Flavio Bolsonaro, is vowing to build more maximum security prisons similar to El Salvador's Seqat prison, which the U.S. used to send hundreds of migrants to until a judge ruled they had to be released. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the model here, one of the, one of the, you know, the, the model here, one of the migrants, the models here is very clearly Naibu Kelle in El Salvador, both in the sense of the public security policies of Naïbekele, so an intensification of the militarization of social conflict and with absolute disregard to human rights, but also in the sense of a policy of automatic alignment with US interests.

So we could see, we could end up seeing Brazil like El Salvador becoming a first line of support for Trump's migration policies in the US, but also Flavio Bolsonaro has spoken very openly and very clearly about the fact that he intends. And obviously, this is part of the bargain. that he's making with the U.S., the present U.S. government, he's spoken very openly about the fact that if he wins, Brazil's rare earths will be entirely dedicated to, and other resources like oil and so on, will be entirely dedicated to U.S. interests,

which obviously in the U.S.'s present situation, in its competition, international competition with China. Brazil would be a major asset. Brazil has the second largest reserves of rare earth in the world, one of the largest of reserves of oil as well. So this would be a major asset for the U.S. in the coming years. Rodrigo Nunes, I want to thank you for being with us, Brazilian philosopher, author of Anatomy of Disintegration.

What Brazil reveals about the global, far right out this week from Haymarket Books. Coming up, I am Jane Doe, the rallying cry of outrage grows over Cornell University's handling of allegations of a female student who says she was raped by seven fraternity members in 2024. Stay with us. Look, in grace, in life, in force, in

light, CEL Azu That's come to the world Thee Tocone the

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the great Brazilian singer, Caitano Veloso, performing in New York City years ago. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We turn out to the case of the Cornell 7. A warning to our audience. A segment includes discussion of rape. I am Jane Doe. That's become a rally in cry as public outrage grows over how Cornell University and local prosecutors handled a few. female students' allegations of sexual assault at a fraternity house in 2024. Last month, a 20-year-old former Cornell University undergraduate student filed a lawsuit, alleging she was gang raped by seven male students at the Chi Phi Fraternity House, October, 24. And that Cornell failed to protect her when she reported what happened to Cornell police three weeks later. Cornell University President Michael Kotlakov issued a video statement over the weekend pledging Cornell would support an independent investigation.

You have my commitment that this will not be a moment that passes. We will continue taking every step necessary to make Cornell an institution that leads not just in what we say about these issues, but in the work that we do to address them. We are listening. We are learning. We are committed to communicating more openly. And where we can do better, we will. That is our responsibility and is one I take personally. There have been mounting calls for Cornell President Michael Kotlakov to resign. Jane Doe, as she's referred to in the lawsuits, says she arrived at the Kai Phi Fraternity House one night to meet a friend.

Despite already being intoxicated, she says two of the fraternity brothers, including her friend, pressured her to snort, ketamine and gave her marijuana. She says they proposed a threesome when she was too impaired to consent, then raped her. One of the boys then sent a Snapchat message to a fraternity group chat saying there was, quote, free pussy upstairs. For the next several hours, Jane Doe says the seven named plaintiffs in the lawsuit took turns assaulting her. A story gained national attention after the student newspaper. The Cornell Daily Sun first reported on the lawsuit. interviewed Jane Doe and demanded answers from the university. The college paper also published the name of the seven accused students in an editorial

headlined, Cornell won't. We will. Last week, the New York Times obtained more than 1,000 pages of transcripts, police reports, investigative records in the case. The unsealed documents include 120-page transcript of Jane Doe's hours-long sworn statement to Cornell police and a university investigator. Her full statement included the sentence, quote, I can say with 100 percent confidence that I was raped, unquote. But this was not included in the report sent by the University Police to the Tompkins County District Attorney's Office.

Tompkins County, DA, Matthew Van Houten, has admitted his office at the time did not independently investigate the case, instead relying entirely. on Cornell's initial investigation in what was handed over to their office. The DA has now reopened the case. They did not interview Jane Doe. The university's own Title IX investigation found Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by two of the seven men. Those men were expelled while the other five received lesser consequences, including essay writing. New York Governor Kathy Hochle is named New York Attorney General Letitia James,

a special prosecutor to investigate how the case was handled. The case has also highlighted what's referred to as the intoxication loophole in New York state law. Students at universities across the country, but especially at Cornell, are calling for the moment to be a reckoning over sexual assault on campus. I am Jane Doe, and I think this is a movement that is meant to help bring light to the issues of women who has to deal with, like, sexual harassment or, you know, assault, both like harassment, like mentally, physically, emotionally.

And I also feel like this is helping bring, like, give courage to other women to, like, speak about their experiences without being targeted or, like, brought down. The whole movement, I think it was really eye-opening just hearing about, like, how there are so many similar cases, like, all across, like, the U.S. and, like, across different colleges. And how, like, honestly, it kind of really shocked me how, like, you know, so many administrations, like the whole system in general. Like, I feel like it's failed, like, so many different people and so many different women and young girls.

I hope that people in future generations, like, I hope my little sister doesn't have to deal with the same things and sort of push for the same goals that have been pushed forward now. For more, we're joined by Deborah Turkheimer, Professor of Law at Northwestern University, author of Credible, why we doubt accusers and protect abusers. Professor Turkheimer, thank you so much. for being with us. I mean, one of the stories here, you know, there's so many issues raised,

but also at the heart of it, a woman being taken seriously. The information is handed over to the Ithaca, to the county police and the investigator, the DA, and she is not even interviewed. Professor Turkheimer, what are the issues that are raised here, including Governor Hokel taking on this intoxication loophole saying it must be closed that whether or not a victim is drunk or drug or on drugs or whatever, that that is not a reason to throw out rape allegations. And well, Amy, as you say, there are so many issues raised by this case. We can start with the failure to investigate the allegations in any serious way. An investigation begins with building trust with the alleged victim.

so that over time she may be able to thoroughly and completely recount what happened in the incident in question. These are really difficult cases when sex crimes allegations come to the fore. The environment should be comfortable. Again, there needs to be that trusting relationship. And a trauma-informed investigation takes into account that memory works differently when it comes to these kinds of traumatic incidents, including sexual assault. Memory is differently encoded, stored, retrieved. And you'd want an investigator to be very cognizant of all of that when speaking with the alleged victim over the course of many sessions. And that's only the beginning.

You would then want the investigator to gather corroborative evidence, or at least to look for it, physical evidence. clothing, cell phones, social media, witnesses to the lead-up, witnesses to the aftermath. On a college campus, there were so many students who presumably had information about what happened on the night in question. You'd want all of those individuals to be interviewed. You'd want the men accused to give their side of the story if they were willing to do that. So that's what a thorough investigation might look like. And unfortunately, around the country, we see a pattern of investigators, police officers, and even prosecutors,

deciding at the outset that the allegations are not worth pursuing and dismissing the case before any kind of investigation gets off the ground. And talk about this alcohol, talk about the intoxication loophole. Right. In this case, the district attorney was able to point to New York rape law, which like about half of the states, treats voluntary intoxication differently from involuntary intoxication. When we talk about intoxication, we're talking about alcohol or drug use. And New York's law makes it much more difficult for prosecutors to go forward in cases where the victim ingested drugs or alcohol and chose to do that. This is really a form of legal victim blaming. It trains the light on the, in this case, woman who may have consumed, may have consumed voluntarily.

And it says that if you are so impaired that you are unable temporarily to appraise or control your conduct, well, that's only a reason to be defined as a victim if you were forced to do those drugs or alcohol. So this blame shifting is really baked into the law. We see it in our culture, but we also see it in the statutes themselves. And it is a loophole that the New York State Legislature is expected to take up when the session reconvenes in the new year. And about 20 states have this loophole. Also, the mayor of Ithaca, Robert Cantelmo, in a statement released last week, has proposed imposing suspension of Greek life, that's fraternities, and other student events saying, despite the severity of these crimes, Cornell University Administration, police fail to contact or coordinate any research. response with the Ithaca Police Department. Furthermore, the university failed to hold the

perpetrators to account. Contrast that with Cornell University and the president breaking his silence this weekend and saying he supports an independent investigation. Well, I think the case has brought back to the surface the culture of impunity on college campuses and beyond. So this is a national conversation that has been reignited. the extent to which fraternities, the extent to which athletics really support this kind of culture that allows perpetrators to escape with little or no accountability. I think when the national conversation was ignited in the way it has been over the last week, Cornell has responded to a certain extent by allowing this independent investigation into its own role in sort of allowing this. to continue on college campuses because over a third of Cornell women

in a recent survey have said that they were, they have been victims of this sort of non-consensual sexual conduct on campus. And so this is an enormous problem, again, not just at Cornell, but across the country. And if you can say,

how is it possible that Cornell handed over some of their investigation to the county DA without including her sentence that she was 100% sure that she was raped. But of course, then the county DA, they didn't interview Jane Doe. So the Cornell police summarized the interview that they had done in this six-page statement. And my understanding from press accounts and from the district attorney's statement is that he relied on that six-page. page summary to determine that there was no possibility of criminal charges going forward. So without speaking to Jane Doe, without making any effort to break down some of the legal

conclusions in that statement, without making any effort to, as I said earlier, build that kind of trust that would enable the most complete account to be gathered. you know, the district attorney pointed to this voluntary intoxication loophole in New York state law and decided that there was no possibility of pursuing charges. I think that that is a decision that has now come under a lot of scrutiny and for good reason. And we see now that the New York Attorney General is going to be picking up the baton and investigating the case before deciding whether there are provable charges. DeVercheimer, I want to thank you so much for being

with us, Professor of Law at Northwestern University, author of Credible, Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. The case is now being handed over to the New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and of course we'll continue to follow it. Coming up, we go to the occupied West Bank to speak with the Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro, detained by the Israeli military for documenting settler violence. Stay with us. Build Your Palaces composed by the dissident Egyptian musician Sheikh Imam performed by the New York City Palestinian youth choir.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. And the occupied West Bank, Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro, was detained at a military base by Israeli soldiers for seven hours Friday. Amro, the founder of the Hebron-based group, Youth Against Settlement. was detained after he went to help a Palestinian family who he says had been attacked by armed settlers at their farmhouse outside, Hebron. He says Israeli soldiers arrived, but instead of protecting the family, they arrested the father and forced the mother and children to remain inside their vehicle. Amro himself was also targeted. Settlers pointed guns at him, threatened to shoot him.

When the soldiers arrived, they handcuffed, blindfolded, and detained not the settlers, but him. Amruisa is one of the most prominent Palestinian human rights defenders in the West Bank. He received the Right Livelyhood Award in 2024, known as the Alternative Nobel. That same year, he and Israeli activists Maoz-Inon, were named laureates of the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law. Isa Amro joins us from Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank. Isa Amro, welcome back to Democracy Now. Explain what happened to you on Friday. We got an alert soon after you were taken, the significance of what you were trying to document and then what happened.

Thank you, Amy. What happened to me is happening to many Palestinian families and many Palestinian human rights defenders and many Palestinian journalists that the Israeli settlers collaborate and coordinate their attacks toward Palestinian families and the Palestinian journalist and Palestinian activists, then the army continue the attack and make it hard for them. This is an example of what is the story on the ground now, that the Palestinian family, they were in their land, you know, trying to farm, trying to take care of their land,

near an Israeli illegal outpost. So it's illegal even according to the Israeli law. Illegal settlers, armed, came to. to terrify the family, terrorize the family, intimidate the family by using violence, using the dogs in appointing the gun and the family. They were four children and the mother and the father, and they were not a threat to the settlers or to the occupation. The army came after ill-treated the mother and the father, and they detained outside the law,

the father, and they took him away. And we lost connection with the family. The family was talking to me. I was explaining to them their legal. rights and what they were supposed to do. Then I went to help the family, to help the children, to help the mother who was locked in the car and the car key was confiscated by the Israeli soldiers. I became the victim of the same settlers who came to do the same thing to me, to point the gun at me, to hit me, to take my ID against the law, and then the soldiers to come to help the

settlers to not allow me document what happened to this family. And, they just used violence and aggression toward me to intimidate me not to help this family or other families because they don't want the world to know. They don't know. They don't want us to document this kind of violation. They don't want us to tell everybody in the world that this kind of settler terror and sitler violence is sponsored by the Israeli government. It's a state-sponsored violence and terror toward the Palestinian families and coordinated

with the Israeli military in the occupied territories, especially in the West Bank, and especially in area sea. So they took me and they threw me as a sheep to the back of a military hammer after they made their dog attack me and bite me and they hit me and they pushed me. And for sure, they intimidated me to be killed and be tortured. And it was very hard experience for seven hours. I was really in a very bad situation under the cold, beaten, hidden. you know, they were, you know, even rejoicing, they were celebrating, taking videos and selfies

and sending it to their WhatsApp groups and telegram groups to, you know, to celebrate detaining and torturing a Palestinian human rights defender and for sure for not allowing a Palestinian family to have access to their land. We are talking about one million, more than one million donoms under the control of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank now. The Israeli settlers established more than 200 new outposts in the West Bank in the last three years and a half. They opened more than 200 kilometers new roads in a Palestinian private land. The Israeli government advanced more than 40,000 new settlement units.

They are going to build an E1 area. around 180, 120 Palestinian families and communities. They were expelled, evicted from their land, from their communities, from their villages, because of this kind of pattern and this kind of strategies and tactics to terrify the families, to isolate the families. In the West Bank, we live in a jail,

we live in ghettos, it's a de facto annexation. Palestine is disappearing because the Israeli settlements are everywhere, The Israeli closure is everywhere. We have around 9, 950 new closed roads, closed communities. We are not connected to each other. The Israeli government declared 26,000 new land to the Israel as a state land. That's half of what they declared in the last 35 years.

almost. This is what's going on. The Israeli government to allocated more than 19 billion shekel to settlements, 7 billion shekels to road, 6 billion shekels, to do development for the new settlements because they started

and established more than 100 new settlements and among them legalizing the illegal outposts. All the settlements are illegal, but even in Israel there are outposts and settlements. 2.75 billion allocated

to a new farms where Israeli settlers attack Palestinians. The settlers, the farms control more than 18% of the West Bank. It's more than Area A. You know, it's more than the size of area A. Issa. One billion for

settlers' tourism. Yes, please. Very quickly, we just have a minute. You told them you at a metal shoulder and they just let you be in the back of what was it, a Humvee, as you were slamming against the different walls while they were driving. And do you think they freed you because of the international outcry warnings came out almost immediately after you were taken?

Yes, Amy, thank you and thanks to democracy now. And thanks to all the people who stood with me and started an international campaign to make my detention costly. I hope this kind of campaigns continue to other Palestinians. I told them that I have a shorter injury. and I'm not supposed to be, you know, a handcuffed to the back or blindfolded in that way. But I was mistreated. I was beaten. I was ill-treated. And until now, I suffer from physical pain.

And, you know, psychologically, I'm not the same as before Friday. It's not the first time. It's not the last time. We have to keep working to make occupation apartheid costly and make this kind of human rights violations costly for the, offenders and to support Palestinian grassroots human rights organization and groups to continue documentation, to continue working against Israeli occupation peacefully and using non-violence resistance.

I thank you so much for being with us. Issa Amro, prominent Palestinian human rights defender now leads the American charity Friends of Hebron, Friday detained by the Israeli military. That does it for our show. A happy birthday to Carlos Pericha. I'm Amy Goodman.