Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-10-09 Friday

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Headlines for October 09, 2026; “Abolish ICE”: Protests Erupt in NYC After ICE Agents Shoot Father with 5-Year-Old Son in Car; Navi Pillay, South African Jurist, Wins Nobel Peace Prize in “Stinging Rebuke to Donald Trump”; “Entire System of Cornell University Failed Her”: Jane Doe Gang Rape Case Enrages Campus Community

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Around 4 p.m. this afternoon, a New Yorker was shot by ice agents in Marble Hill. When ice agents opened fire, a five-year-old child, a five-year-old child was in the backseat of the car. New Yorkers protest late into the night after masked ice agents, at least one dressed as a construction worker, shot and wounded a man through a car window. We'll speak to New York Democratic Congressional candidate, Dari Elisa Avila Chevalier, and New York City Council member Carmen de La Rosa. Then the winner of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize has been announced. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navathenam Navi

for her efforts to promote peace and international law. We'll speak to war crimes prosecutor, Reid Brody. And finally, to the ongoing fallout from Cornell University's handling of an alleged gang rape at a college fraternity. Jane is not alone, and we are here to stand with her, and to point out to everyone in the world that this is not an isolated case, and we want this to end. We'll speak to a Cornell student and a professor leading the call for a no-confidence vote in Cornell president, Michael Kotlacoff.

All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Protests erupted in New York City Thursday after a federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in the Marble Hill neighborhood of Northern Manhattan. Seven shots rang out in quick succession just after 4 p.m. on a crowded street. As people, men, women, and children walked home from school or work or accompanied their children. 28-year-old Oscar Belgaul was struck in the neck. His five-year-old child, who was in the back seat, was physically unharmed. Belgaul was taken to a local hospital where hundreds of protesters soon gathered to demand

his release chanting, ice off our streets now, and we want justice. New York police arrested four people, assaulted many others, including congressional candidate Daryalice Avila Chivalier, who was not to the ground. Mayor Zoran Mamdani said he called President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen to negotiate Belgall's release, but was rebuffed. He said he spoke to the president for two hours. He expressed outrage over the shooting and repeated his call to abolish ICE. ICE undermines public safety. It makes us less safe. New York City will not stand by while ICE agents shoot New Yorkers, and we will not back down from the demand that so many, including myself, have put forward time and again. This is an agency that must be abolished.

This comes after the Trump administration ordered immigration agents to increase their daily arrest total to up to 3,000 arrests per day, up from 2,000 per day through the midterm elections. After headlines will speak with Democratic congressional candidate, Adelisa Avila Chivalier, and New York City Council Member Carmen DeLadosa. In Harrison, New Jersey, there's growing outrage over the violent detention of a man by mass. federal immigration agents in a chaotic scene that was caught on video. Footage of Wednesday's incident shows a woman holding a baby and a young boy trying to hold onto a handcuffed man as federal agents attempt to push him into an unmarked SUV. Another child collapses to the pavement wailing as bystanders attempt to intervene shouting, it's a kid and she's got a baby.

Some agents in the video wore masks despite a New Jersey law banning law enforcement officers from covering their faces in most cases. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the family of Silverio Villas Gonzalez has filed a formal complaint against the Trump administration seeking damages for what they're calling the execution-style killing of the 38-year-old Mexican father of two. Villegas Gonzalez was killed by ICE agents in September 2025 in a Chicago suburb during Operation Midway Blitz. He was unarmed and had no criminal record.

In a statement, Villegas family wrote, quote, The administration has tried to justify his death by smearing his good name with lies and false narratives, but here's the truth. After Silverio was shot, Two innocent children were left without their father, and we were left without a brother and son. We're united by the same pain that every family who's been impacted by this inhumane immigration system faces, they said. The USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft carrier has finally returned to San Diego after an unprecedented 265 days at sea. During the extended deployment, there were at least eight suicide attempts amidst reports of deteriorating

troop morale link to poor conditions, food shortages, and contaminated water. The Navy faced difficulty restocking the ship after Iran blew up a key Navy logistics hub at a base in Bahrain in February. This forced the Navy to relocate its regional logistics and supply hub over 2,000 miles away to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. In related news, a new congressional report reveals at least 81 U.S. military aircraft and drones have been damaged or destroyed since the U.S. launched its war against Iran. In Michigan, Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul-El-Sayyat faced off against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in their

first debate Thursday evening. Dr. El-Said criticized Roger's support for foreign wars. I've got a guy to my left over here who thinks that the best use of our money is to go fight wars abroad. What has that given us? It's part of the reason why he was in Congress, 12 trillion dollars, the national debt blew up because he's never seen a war he didn't want us fighting. So I don't consider an ally, a country that takes us to wars we don't need to fight. And I don't want to be fighting wars. We don't need to fight. During the debate, Mike Rogers defended the tens of millions of dollars spent by APEC and other pro-Israel groups in support of his campaign. He also defended his staunch support for Israel.

I support just staunchly their right to exist, the right to exist for the Jewish state, and the right to defend itself in a very difficult neighborhood. Got 10 seconds. Is there anything Israel could do that would lose your support? Listen, if they're talking about using nuclear weapons, they would definitely lose my support. I've never heard of them say that, though. In Ukraine, the death toll from Russian attacks over the past two days has climbed to 78 after a bomb tour through two buses Thursday in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk near the front lines.

The attack left debris and body parts littered across a road. In response, the Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky criticized the Trump administration for pursuing economic ties with Russia while also serving as a mediator in efforts to end the war. The 26 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navi Pile, the South African-born jurist and human rights activists. for her efforts to promote peace and international law. Navi Pillay is a judge on the International Court of Justice in a case against Burma, alleging genocide over the military's treatment of Rohingyas.

She previously served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. She also served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and until recently chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian territory. Last year, the commission concluded Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. This is Navi Pillay, speaking about the commission's findings.

In our report, the commission found that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed and are continuing to commit the following underlying acts of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip 1, killing members of the group, two, causing Syria. bodily or mental harm to members of the group. Three, deliberately inflicting on the group, conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and four, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. We'll have more on the 26th Nobel Peace Prize winner, Navi Pile, later in the broadcast

with War Crimes Prosecutor, Reeve Brody. The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has convened a federal grand jury as it seeks a criminal indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide, who is a key witness to the House Committee investigating the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In 2022, Cassidy testified President Trump knew the attendees at his rally outside the White House, January 6th, were armed with assault rifles, handguns, knives, and mace, but ordered the Secret Service to remove security magnetometers or mags from the rally. I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't effing care that they have weapons. they're not here to hurt me, take the effing bags away, let my people in, they can march the capital from here. House Democrats are calling for a probe into an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving Kimberly Gilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece. The Wall Street Journal reports Gilfoyle requested a Republican donor named Eric Dieter give her $100,000 just days before her confirmation hearing. Gilfoyle wrote to Dieter's quote,

You could just send it here. It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express, please. Dieter spoke to ABC News on Thursday. She was so desperate for me to send that $100,000. She said, if you do this for me, and it's in a text messages, I will be your ride or die in Trump world. Gilfoyle is the former fiancé of Donald Trump Jr. In related news, the Wall Street Journal reports Gilfoyle got into a heated argument in March with Greece's energy minister.

Gilfoyle referred to the impending collapse of the Romanian government and then said, quote, we can do that to any country we want. We can do that here, she said. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. military will live stream the execution. A former Army psychiatrist Nadal Hassan, the gunman who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in 2009, he's set to be executed by firing squad on December 3rd. Defense Secretary Pete Hegsef discussed the plan on the far right Real America's voice news channel. It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be. and we'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that this is a,

there's serious consequences for these types of things. The execution of Nadal Hassan is set to become the first public execution in the United States since 1936 when some 20,000 people in Owensboro, Kentucky watched a young black man hanged after he was convicted of raping a white woman. A warning to our audience that following stories contain graphic descriptions of sexual assault. The 20-year-old former student who sued Cornell University, alleging she was gang raped by seven male students at the Kai Phi fraternity house, has reportedly gone into hiding in her parents' home after receiving death threats. Lawyers for the woman, known only as Jane Doe, described her deteriorating mental state to CNN,

after an escalating series of violent threats. That included a so-called swatting episode in which heavily armed police officers showed up at her family home guns drawn on a bogus tip that people had been killed inside. Thursday was a National Day of Action and Solidarity with Jane Doe and against impunity for sexual abusers, with high schoolers, college students, and advocates holding walkouts, rallies, and vigils in at least 40 states. Later in the broadcast, we'll hear from protesters at Columbia University and Barnard College, and will hear from a Cornell student and a Cornell professor who's trying to lead a vote for no confidence in the Cornell administration. In Arizona, Democratic congressional candidate Bernadette Green Placentia says she was assaulted and raped by two men in August as she attempted to repair a damaged campaign sign late at night. Green Placentia believes the attack may have been politically motivated.

She reported the alleged assault to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office two weeks later, saying she was hit from behind and knocked unconscious before waking up to two men sexually assaulting her. She says she does not have a clear memory of the assault during which she may have suffered a concussion, but she recalls one of the attackers calling her a Democratic B. It rhymes with itch. Green Placentius said she decided to come forward to give a voice to other survivors. And President Trump's newly released financial disclosure shows that he purchased as much as $5 million in SpaceX bonds shortly before he signed a new space policy that could benefit Elon Musk

and his company. In total, Trump bought up to $250 million in stocks in August, including an investment of up to $25 million in META, the parent company of Facebook, such stock trading by a sitting president is unprecedented. ABC recently reported Trump made 21,000 securities trades during his first year back in office. By contrast, Joe Biden made a total of 13 trades during his entire term. In related news on Thursday, Trump honored SpaceX founder Elon Musk and other tech executives at a White House Science Summit. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York.

York with Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our list of viewers across the country and around the world. Well, today, one, we're going to be talking about your old neighborhood, uptown in Manhattan. Protests erupted in New York City on Thursday after a federal immigration agent shot and wounded a man in his vehicle in the Marble Hill neighborhood of northern Manhattan. Seven shots rang out in quick succession. just after 4 p.m. on a crowded street as people walked home from work or accompanied their children home from school. 28-year-old Oscar Belgaul was struck in the neck. His five-year-old child was in the back seat of the car.

Belgaul was taken to the nearby Columbia Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where hundreds of protesters gathered to demand his release chanting, ice off our streets now, and we want justice. New York police arrested four people assaulted others, including congressional candidate, Dadaelisa Avela Chivalier, who is not to the ground. She'll join us in a minute. In a late-night news conference, New York City mayor, Zoran Mamdani, said he called President Trump and spoke to him for two hours and also talked to Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen to negotiate Belgall's release but was unsuccessful. around 4 p.m. this afternoon a new yorker was shot by ice agents in marble hill many of the facts surrounding this shooting are still unclear ice agents surrounded the man's vehicle before opening fire they wore construction vests and masks that

concealed their faces there was no reasonable way to identify them as ice agents school had just gotten out The street was crowded with families and children. When ICE agents opened fire, a five-year-old child, a five-year-old child, was in the backseat of the car. Thank God that child is physically unharmed. For the past two hours, I have been on the phone with President Trump and Secretary Mullen negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful.

were unsuccessful. Just moments ago, ICE put the man in an unmarked vehicle and whisked him away. Let me say this plainly. What happened today was an outrage. I stand here not just as the mayor of our city,

but as someone who is proud to be an immigrant in our city. And I know that these kinds of raids, this kind of terrorizing of this city, leaves the three million immigrants of this city asking if they are safe here, if they belong here, if this two can be their home here. We will not normalize ICE's viciousness. We will not accept its cruelty.

We know, and I have said this directly, whether to the president or to the public, ICE undermines public safety. It makes us less safe. New York City will not stand by while ICE agents shoot New Yorkers, and we will not back down from the demand that so many, including myself, have put forward time and again. This is an agency that must be abolished. New York City mayors are on Mamdani late last night at a news conference. We're joined now by two guests who are also on the scene last night. New York City Council member Carmen Deladosa represents Marble Hill, Inwood, and Washington Heights. And we're joined by D'Alisa Villa Chevalier. She's the Democratic candidate for Congress.

Congress representing Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. I mean, to say the least, it was heated last night. I was there with Democracy Now as Nicole Salazar. Let me turn to Dadi Elisa Avila Chivalier. Can you talk about what you're demanding right now as you participated in the news conference, then you marched to the hospital. Hundreds were there. And then what happened to you? Yeah, well, first of all, thank you, Amy, so much for having me. I had hoped that the next time we would get to speak would be under happier circumstances. But frankly, I've just been feeling enraged since yesterday. And it has been hard to process all that has happened and transpired.

You know, when we were at the press conference, we were calling very clearly all of the elected officials for the abolishment of ICE. This is an agency that should have never existed to begin with. And what we saw yesterday was a prime example of why it is a terror to our communities, why it should not exist. It undermines public safety. It makes our communities feel terrorized by their own government. And we need to make sure that such an agency never comes to pass and never exists again. The fact that there were so many agents, ICE agents, HSI agents, federal agents on the scene, NYPD was not giving elected officials much information.

once we were on the scene to try to understand what had happened, whether or not the child was safe, the fact that it took so long for us to get confirmation of those details. All of that undermines public safety. Folks were scared and rightfully so. You know, it was we, Senator Gustavo Rivera and I had to go behind HSI agents, Homeland Security investigation agents, because they were going door to door asking neighbors for,

critical evidence, asking them about their video cameras, asking them for more information. And we had to go behind the HSI agents to let folks know that they were under no obligation to open the door, that they were under no obligation to speak to any of these agents without a warrant. And so I want New Yorkers to know if you see someone, even if it says police, if it's not a warrant, if they do not have a warrant, they do not have to open the door or speak to any of these agents. They will pretend to be NYPD police. They are not you do not have to open the door to them. We, you know, went over to the press conference after that,

called for abolishing ICE, called for the release of the person who had been shot, and for answers and accountability and meaningful accountability. Unfortunately, what I saw was NYPD escalating the situation where protesters were outside of the hospital, trying to make sure that ICE wasn't leaving with our neighbor. and, you know, they continue to escalate the situation. I was trying to de-escalate and telling them that the barricades were not necessary,

that folks were calm, you know, the tensions continued to rise, and police became more aggressive, and at one point shoved me and others to the ground. You know, there were four arrests that happened yesterday. Those were completely unnecessary. The escalation, you know, was completely unnecessary. And this is why we also need. must demand that we get rid of and disband the SRG because this type of response should have never happened for folks who were just simply trying to protect their neighbor. Yeah, I'd like to

ask a councilwoman Carmen de la Rosa. I know this neighborhood well. I lived in an inward a few blocks away from there for nearly 20 years, especially around where this happened. This is a highly congested area, especially in the afternoon, four o'clock in the afternoon. people coming out of the train station, a big mall right next door to there. Haven't you and other public officials complained about previously about ice using a target right there in that mall to gather their forces and to go out on sweeps? Yes, there's been an escalating sightings of ice at the Target parking lot, which is private property.

Myself and the surrounding elected officials have come together to demand that the old of the property, stop allowing ice onto his property. We've been told that they would discontinue any presence of ice at the parking lot. Unfortunately, we continue to see ice there, and it has also been the scene of neighbors protesting that presence of ice. But we've also seen ice in our local parks. We've seen ice sightings and congregating at Bank Cortland Park in Woodhill Park. And this is the result of that escalating presence and unnecessary presence of ice. in our communities. And how did the New York City Police Department deal with you as compared to the ICE agents and the federal authorities?

As Daria Lisa just said, the information coming from the NYPD was vague at best. I personally witnessed the NYPD escalating aggressively towards our community, barricading the community in, pressing barricades against our neighbors as they try to make sure that their rights, their civil rights to protest, to show up, to speak up, were being violated. And unfortunately, I also witnessed NYPD helping the ICE vehicles whisk away our neighbors and come in and out of the hospital. So in my opinion, although we have been told that NYPD does not collaborate, there is a perception of at the very least coordinating efforts for ICE's entrance and exits into our hospital.

Donnie, Lisa Villas Chavallier, witnesses have said that the ICE agent used what appeared to be a long gun, a large semi-automatic assault rifle. Can you talk about using a high-powered weapon as children are leaving school? And what does it mean for the city and also the state? of New York to be a sanctuary city and state. You know, Amy, I cannot think of any good reason why such a weapon would be in our inner city at all held by anybody. And the fact that these cowboys who think they can just be above the law are shooting into

our streets, not asking who is around, shooting into a car that had a five-year-old child in it, that child is so traumatized. now because they just witnessed their father, his father be shot by these agents. You know, when we arrived at the scene, I asked the officers whether it was a crime scene because of the crash or a crime scene because of the shooting. And they told, NYPD told me that it was a crime scene

because of the shooting. And yet they could not tell us whether the shooter had been apprehended, who the shooter was. No information was given to us. And so to Carmen's point, the vagueness of this really forces us to ask whether the silence here is not also complicity in ICE's actions. The fact that, you know, we saw agents change clothes. We were trying to figure out, identify which agency they were with. And no information was being given to elected officials at all levels of government.

It was truly astonishing, as I was making my way over to the hospital to see, you know, unmarked car, which had police. lights heading south and police, NYPD police, pushing protesters, physically pushing protesters out of the street. And as the car was ramming into people before speeding away, it is truly shocking. And I, you know, the levels of violence, not just from the fact that the, the ice agent had a weapon of that magnitude, but the, the use of the vehicles that were running into our, and to our neighbors, all of that, all of that is an affront to the notion that this has anything to do with public safety. We have become less safe with the presence of ICE and we need to make sure that we are actually upholding the sanctuary policies of the city. There is no reason why

NYPD should be collaborating this way, even just by standing around. That in itself is complicity in us. And, you know, I was actually very disgusted to hear Commissioner Tish's remarks yesterday because just a few hours prior, public advocate Hermione Williams reminded us that the way that the victim would be spoken about would be in a demonizing way. And just a few hours later, that is what police commissioner at Tish did. There was no reason for her to read out, you know, this person's past contact with police. there was no justification for anything that transpired that afternoon. And for her to do that was symboling that there are some occasions under which that is okay.

There is no occasion under which this is okay. There is no excuse for allowing ice to come into our city, to shoot seven bullets into cars where there are children. It is just an outrage. And I truly have no words for just how enraging. Everything that transpired last night was. I want to thank you both for being with us, D'Aalisa Villa Chevalier, Democratic candidate in New York's 13th Congressional District. And I want to thank New York City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa. Coming up, the 26th Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Navi Pillay, the South African-born jurist and human rights activists.

Stay with us. The Oathie Now This is Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced the winner of the 26 Nobel Peace Prize. This is chair of the Nobel Committee speaking in Oslo this morning. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 goes to a person who with exceptional courage and integrity has led the way towards a more comprehensive global legal order.

This year's laureate has been instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navatham Navi Pillai for her efforts to promote peace and international law. The South African human rights lawyer and international jurist Navi Pile has been the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and a judge at both the international criminal court. Court at an international tribunal investigating the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Most recently, she led the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry that it concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Navi Pillay is now 85 years old. She was born into an Indian Tamil family in apartheid South Africa, the first woman to

start a law practice in Natal, South Africa, in 19. She began her legal career defending anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, exposing torture and helping establish key rights for prisoners on Robin Island. The Nobel Committee also praised her work in South Africa. A common thread runs from her early work defending Nelson Mandela and others who stood up against apartheid to her service. as a judge in some of the key international court cases of our time. Navi Pillay was in Nuremberg, Germany, at an annual conference of human rights lawyers and judges

when she got the news this morning. If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump. The last thing I did is the delivery of the reporter in Gaza, naming what's happening there's genocide. Yeah. Bravo. Meanwhile, Israel's foreign ministry took to X to denounce the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, calling it a, quote, grotesque weaponization of an award

to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice, unquote. This is Navi Pillay speaking to Reuters last year about her genocide findings as the chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian territories. Genocide is occurring in Gaza. We haven't gone into Palestine yet. We will, because this is a permanent commission. And we named the three individuals that we felt were responsible. And we said, and the one is the prime minister, the other, the president, and the third is the former Minister of Defense. And we said that since they acted as agents of the state, then the state

of Israel is responsible. Today we witness in real time how the promise of never again is broken and tested in the eyes of the world. The ongoing genocide in Gaza is a moral outrage and a legal emergency. For more, we're joined here in our New York studio by war crimes prosecutor, Reid Brody, member of the International Commission of Juris, served as a member of the United Nations group of human rights experts on Nicaragua. He's also the author of To Catch a Dictator, the pursuit and trial of Hussain Habre. First, read, your response to Navi Pillay being chosen as the 2026 Nobel Peace Laureate. This was just wonderful. I mean, I love it. I love it. I love of Navi Pillay. I mean, everybody in the human rights movement reveres Navi Pillay,

who actually embodies the last 60 years of work for human rights and the rule of law, from an anti-apartheid lawyer and judge in South Africa to the tribunals on Rwanda and the ICC. It's High Commissioner for Human Rights, not just being the first woman in all of these things, but actually, or the first African, but actually, you know, breaking new ground on genocide, on LGBT issues, on women's issues. And it's also a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump is fighting, and the Nobel Committee did not mention Donald Trump, but his name was omnipresent in what they said.

I mean, Donald Trump is sanctioning judges, fighting for a world in which, you know, might makes right in which they, There is no accountability. And Navi Pillay represents the exact opposite of that. The rule of law, accountability for the worst crimes, you know, the rule of law rather than the law of the jungle. And, Reed, it's not only a rebuke, obviously, of Donald Trump, but the decision of the Nobel Committee to choose Navi Pillay at this particular time in terms of the impact on Israel and the growing, isolation of Israel worldwide. Could you talk about that as well? Well, of course, you know, she, Navi Pillay was the head of the UN Independent Commission that was looking into abuses

in the occupied territories. I'm on a similar commission for Nicaragua. And she found, you know, with her, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt, excuse me, reasonable grounds to believe, that Israel was committing genocide. And she backed that up with thousands of interviews, through forensic proof. And I think around the world, people can cite the work that Navi Pillay has done on this. When people say that Israel is engaged in genocide, they have this imprimatur from a quasi-judicial body

of the United Nations, you know, led by one of the most distinguished judges in the world. And if you could comment on the comments of the Nobel Committee around right now, the international legal order and what international human rights law is about? Well, I think that's the most important thing here. I mean, we are living in a moment, as you have had on your show several times, in which the entire architecture of international law and accountability is under attack. The United States, which has vowed to dismantle the international criminal court, the court that she used to sit on, brick by brick, which is sanctioning the judges,

like as she was once a judge of the ICC. We understand new sanctions for the United States are coming down. And here is somebody who represents the exact opposite, who represent a, exactly that so-called international law, those rogue international judges that the United States is going. So this is such an important moment. And interesting. She got the news in Nuremberg, Germany, the significance of Nuremberg and the Nuremberg trials for the establishment of international law. Absolutely.

I mean, Noremberg is the genesis of international accountability. It's the genesis of Never Again. It's the first international tribunal that held state actors responsible for crimes against humanity, which talked about aggression as the supreme international crime. And in Norrumburg, she's on the board of the Norrumburg Academy, and in fact, one of the last times I saw Navi Pillay was in Norinburg, where they hold these regular meetings of judges and lawyers to promote the legacy of Norenberg and the Noringberg principles, which stand for this idea that no one is above the law.

And very importantly, I mean, the United States, Russia, Soviet Union, France, and the Great Britain were the powers that created the International Military Tribunal. And the U.S. prosecutor, Judge Jackson, said, you know, we are, you know, it's the Germans who are in front of us today, but this law has to apply to everyone. I wanted to ask you a question on a separate issue, and that is the issue of Nicaragua. We have the latest news that the United States has sent a Nicaragua torture victim back to, He deported him to Nicaragua, a Nicaraguan exile who was imprisoned and tortured after protesting against the country's government was deported by the U.S. back to Nicaragua, where he was immediately imprisoned this past week. If you can talk about your role in investigating Nicaragua, and it's very interesting to speak to you, given that, what, 40 years ago, you were one of the leading critics and investigators of the contra war crime atrocities. against the Sandinistas. Well, I mean, so today, of course,

Nicaragua has become a dictatorship, led by Daniel Ortega, in which, you know, there are no human rights, there is no civic space in which 453, Nicaraguan's have been stripped of their nationality,

expelled. One-tenth of the Nicaraguan population has fled abroad, and many are in the United States. Some of them, San Denaeaster leaders. Some of them, old Sandinista leaders, many of them who were expelled by Nicaragua to the United States. And unfortunately, a number of them, seven of, Nicaragua once put 222 dissidents on a plane to the United States. As of today, six of those people have been in ICE detention.

And, you know, Marco Rubio, the United States considers Nicaragua to be a dictatorship. The U.S. government has coordinated international efforts to isolate Nicaragua, including a recent meeting of the Organization of American States, that were devoted to Nicaragua. And yet what we're seeing is that Nicaraguan dissidents are being picked up by ICE and in this case, return to Nicaragua where they are re-arrested. In other cases, Nicaragans are being sent around the world. or Nicaraguans who have been deported to the Central African Republic. A few weeks ago, one of the 222 Nicaraguans who was expelled on a plane,

a leading journalist, Luis Galliano, on whose show I've been many times, was arrested by ICE and still, now he's out on bail, but he still faces deportation hearings. And your title on the commission investigating Nicaragua that recently released a report? I'm a member of the United Nations group of human rights experts on Nicaragua, similar to the one that Navi Pillay was the chair of for the occupied Palestinian territories. In which she found genocide.

In which she found that Israel had been engaged in genocide. I want to thank you so much for being with us. Reid Brody, war crimes prosecutor, member of the International Commission of Juris, has served, as he said, as a member of the United Nations group of human rights experts on Nicaragua. Coming up, we look at the ongoing fallout from Cornell University. of an alleged gang rape of a Cornell undergraduate at a college fraternity house. Stay with us.

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anti-patriarchy and aligrisia. Anti-patriarchy by Anna Tijou. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Mimi Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We turn now to the national outcry over the recent revelations of sexual assault at Cornell University. And a warning to our audience,

the following stories contain graphic descriptions of sexual assault. The former student who has sued Cornell University, alleging she was gang raped in 2024 by seven male students at the Chi Phi Fraternity House, has reportedly gone into hiding in her parents' home after receiving death threats. Lawyers for the woman, known only as Jane Doe, describe her deteriorating mental state to CNN after an escalating series of violent threats. That included a so-called swatting episode in which heavily armed police officers showed up at her family

home guns drawn on a bogus tip that people had been killed inside. Since Jane Doe filed her civil suit, prosecutors have reopened a criminal investigation, and New York Governor Kathy Hockel appointed Attorney General Letitia James, a special prosecutor in the case. Cornell University hired Sally Yates, a top former U.S. Justice Department lawyer, to lead an independent review of how the school handled. the allegations. Thursday was a National Day of Action and solidarity with Jane Doe and against impunity for sexual abusers, with high schoolers, college students, advocates, holding walkouts, rallies, vigils in 40 states here in New York. Scores of students from Columbia University and

Barnard College protested outside Columbia's gates, demanding administrators cut ties with associates of the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, including Barnard College trustee Francine LaFraq, who was invited to spend a holiday with Jeffrey Epstein in 2010 two years after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. This is Marisol Boniface, a sophomore at Barnard College. ...of course of Cornell University, I remind myself that Jane Stone's case is not one standalone incident. It is a campus rape culture that is permitted on every campus nationwide. It is a culture of ignoring survivors and diminishing their demands and

It is a system that maintains sexual assultors in their powerful positions. Meanwhile, at Cornell University, faculty members introduced a resolution calling for a no-confidence vote in university administrators' handling of the alleged gang rape at a fraternity house. On Wednesday, students held a sit-in on campus following a large demonstration on campus Monday. This is student protesters, Sayah Taylor, speaking Monday. Jane Doe deserve an administration that delivered a fair and proper duty. process. Jane Doe deserve a police department. I would actually follow up on her case. Instead, she was silenced. Her rape was free to walk the grounds of Cornell under a system that chose

the university over the student. For more, we're joined by Sia Taylor from Ithaca, New York. She's a sophomore at Cornell University, majoring in environment, sustainability, and government, a member of the students for a Democratic Cornell. And we're joined from Ethica by Paul Ortiz, Professor of Labor History at Cornell University, leading sponsoring faculty senator for the vote of no confidence resolution. Let's begin with you, Professor Ortiz. What actually are you calling for? What is this vote? Amy, this is a resolution that states that the faculty has no confidence in the ability of the central administration of Cornell to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell.

Students have been approaching faculty, Amy, many of us have been holding open office hours, and the number one message that Cornell students have is that the Jane Doe, Jane Doe's ordeal is the tip of the iceberg, that there have been many, many other cases where women have been sexually assaulted and raped at Cornell University. and they're afraid of coming forward. They're afraid of going to the authorities because the investigation may be botched or they may be shamed.

And so after hearing a student, after student coming in, and Amy, not just students, current students, but alumni, I've had alumni share stories about how they were raped at Cornell in years past. And so this is what leads us to call for a vote of no confidence in Cornell's central administration. And Professor Ortiz, how do you respond to those who say that this is largely a symbolic vote if it occurs and will not lead to the removal of the president or the provost?

Well, we responded that by saying many people approached us as we were putting this resolution together. This was a collective process. And what we came up with was that even if you could remove Mike Kotlakov or other, administrators. And believe me, there are many students and many faculty who would like nothing less. The problem is if you remove one person, it doesn't change the culture. It doesn't change, it doesn't change the culture of rape culture on campus. It doesn't change the fact that generations of Cornell students and staff and alumni have been victims of sexual assault. And the central administration has failed to address those traumas. And so it sometimes Americans,

have this idea that if you just replace the person at the top, things will change. Well, this wouldn't change anything at Cornell. I want to go back to our guest, the student, Sia Taylor, who is 18 years old and a sophomore at Cornell University. If you can explain what you understood took place, this was several years ago when Jane Doe, as we are calling her, says she went into this frat house, Kai Fai, and says she was raped by seven male students. At this point, the college newspaper has named those students, right?

Two of them expelled, and several of them still going to class. One was assigned writing an essay. And so we saw signs on campus that protests were holding saying, Sentencing, not essays. Can you explain what you understood took place and why this has exploded on the campus now, Sia? What took place as released by the Cornell Daily Sun was a very horrific, very detailed, and very graphic incident. What happened to Jane Doe wasn't just the fact that she went to the Kai Fi House and seven men took advantage of her. The entire system of Cornell University failed her.

Students are outraged, not because they're outraged solely at these seven men. They're outraged at the system that the university perpetrates. Rape culture and sexual assault culture thrives on campus, even though I am a sophomore and I'm 18 years old. In my one full year that I've seen Cornell University, I have seen it firsthand where Cornell has a very corrupt judicial process. They would rather brush many cases under the rug than actually give people fair trials, fair investigations, and fair due process. So the true outrage in this case doesn't just come from what happened to Jane Doe.

It comes from the fact that it could have happened to anybody on campus, and they still would have not received any justice. And, SIE, I wanted to ask you at universities across the country, faculty and staff every year undergo training on sexual harassment and sexual assault and what to do about it and the Title IX requirements. And yet these events continue to happen. What is fundamentally wrong with the process that these universities are undertaking to educate their students and staff? As a member of students for a Democratic Cornell, us, our organization along with 40 other coalition partners on campus released five demands that we want the university to see and to put into action in

response to this case. And one of the demands does indeed talk about how mandatory sexual assault prevention training needs to take place. As it stands right now at Cornell University, you need to complete a module in the summer before you become a freshman at Cornell. It is 30 minutes long, and most students that I've interacted with have entirely skipped it. And even besides for the education level, Cornell University does not make sexual assault seem like a big thing. They make sexual assault prevention modules into a quick 30-minute course, which is not the severity that this situation or that these events require. Let me ask Professor Ortiz, just going through what has taken place. Jane Doe said in the lawsuit that she arrived at the Kai Phi fraternity house one night to meet a

friend. Despite already being intoxicated, she says two of the frat brothers, including her friend, pressured her to snort ketamine and gave her marijuana. She says they proposed a threesome. She was too impaired to consent and raped her. One of the men then sent a Snapchat message to a fraternity group that chat saying that there was, quote, free bleep. upstairs. For the next several hours, Jane Doe says the seven named plaintiffs in the lawsuit took turns assaulting her. Now, Governor Hockel has called for an end to the intoxication loophole. I think 20 states have this that says if you're intoxicated, you can't charge something like rape. And it has said that the Cornell police, and handing over the case to the Ithaca police

and to the DA omitted the phrase that she said, I am 100% sure I was raped, Professor Ortiz. Yes, these are all facts, Amy. And I think this is the reason that Jane Doe's ordeal has galvanized, students, faculty, alumni, and we're hearing from people all across the country. My students have approached me all women to talk about their ordeals. And the reason Jane Doe's case galvanized them is they said, we recognize our ordeal at Cornell and Jane Doe's experiences. We have been sexually assaulted.

And when we tried to speak out, we were silenced. There is a real culture of fear of Cornell, Amy. It's not just Cornell, but we're focusing on Cornell right now. Students have been afraid to speak out and to say anything that the administration might view as being unpopular. We know that there was repression of pro-Palestinian protesters, of anti-war protesters. What my students report to me is there's a continuum of fear about speaking out to any experience that the university doesn't want us to be making, being made public. Cut shut down. Was Kai Fi shut down?

Yes, it was shut down and Amy this morning. there was a powerful op-ed written by a former Chi-Fi member in the Cornell Daily Sun. And I really want to lift up the Daily Sun as really a beacon of amazing reporting on campus, the independent student newspaper. But that former member of Chi-Fi detailed the brutal hazing and very sexualized hazing rituals. We have to leave it there, but I want to thank you so much for being with us. We'll certainly continue to cover this case. Paul Ortiz, Professor of Labor History at Cornell and Sia Taylor, 18-year-old sophomore at Cornell,

majoring in Environment Sustainability and Government Member of the Students for a Democratic Cornell. That does it for our show. Steal the story, please. The documentary about Democchanal will be viewable online for the first time in an exclusive special event, starting Tuesday, October 13th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. If you live in Canada and the United States, you can watch the film in your own home, be part of the post-screening question and answer with me and the filmmakers, is moderated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Madhiana Hosa.

Find out more at steallustory.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.