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Investigation Urged Into Killing of Haitian President and Grave Human Rights Violations Under His Watch
Last night's armed assault that reportedly killed Haitian President Jovenel Moise and injured his wife is a shocking indicator of the serious human rights and political crisis that Haiti has been facing for years, and must be promptly and impartially investigated alongside the grave and ongoing human rights violations in the country, Amnesty International said today.
WASHINGTON
Last night's armed assault that reportedly killed Haitian President Jovenel Moise and injured his wife is a shocking indicator of the serious human rights and political crisis that Haiti has been facing for years, and must be promptly and impartially investigated alongside the grave and ongoing human rights violations in the country, Amnesty International said today.
"The killing of President Jovenel Moise must be immediately and impartially investigated alongside the grave human rights violations and chronic impunity that ordinary people have suffered under his watch," said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.
"This is a wake-up call for the international community, and for the Haitian authorities who have overseen chronic impunity and ignored the calls of human rights defenders that has paved the way for such a serious crisis."
Amnesty International is concerned at the potential escalation of violence in coming days and will be carefully monitoring any potential protests that ensue, attacks against human rights defenders, and attacks against ordinary Haitians. The organization calls on the Haitian authorities to put human rights at the centre of their response to the political crisis.
The international community must also provide all assistance to the country to find ways to de-escalate violence and provide human rights protection, including for journalists and human rights defenders. States also have an obligation to allow those who leave the country in search of international protection to seek asylum.
Background
Protests and widespread violence have been ongoing in Haiti since at least 2019, as Amnesty International previously documented.
In this context, human rights defenders and journalists have been under increasing attack.
In July, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists condemned the killing of journalist Diego Charles. An activist, Antoinette Duclair, was also killed. In May, Amnesty International also documented the case of Milostene Castin, a defender of the rights of subsistence farmers who have suffered land seizures, displacement, and violent attacks in north-eastern Haiti.
The Observatoire Haitien des Crimes contre l'humanite (OHCCH) and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic also issued a report in April alleging complicity of the Haitian government in three massacres targeting impoverished neighbourhoods carried out between 2018 and 2020. The report points to evidence that the attacks, carried out by gangs, were supported by state actors, including President Moise, and alleges these acts could amount to crimes against humanity.
A UN report, published in January 2021, found a sharp increase in human rights violations and abuses of the right to life during the 2018 and 2019 protests and called on the authorities to address underlying concerns including "impunity, corruption, structural inequality and adequate standard of living in order to restore public confidence and prevent future unrests." Civil society organizations, including the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti have repeatedly raised concerns about chronic impunity and judicial dysfunction in Haiti, including in a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held in December 2020.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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GOP Cuts to Medicaid 'Will Kill People,' Advocate Warns and New Research Bolsters
A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
May 16, 2025
Critics who say extensive cuts to Medicaid being pushed by the Trump administration and House Republicans will result in the deaths of people were bolstered Friday by new reporting on a recent study detailing how the key health program for the nation's poor saves live.
As Republicans in Congress pressed ahead this week with a plan that would cause at least 8 million Americans to lose Medicaid as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump, a recently published working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, first reported on by The New York Times, shows that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
A provision in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014, allowed states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to all low-income adults regardless of disability or parenthood status. The change is part of the reason that enrollment in the program rose roughly 50% between 2010 and 2021, according to the authors of the study.
The study, which used a dataset of 37 million low-income American adults, found that expansions increased Medicaid enrollment by 12 percentage points. The study estimates that people who enrolled in Medicaid were 21% less likely to die compared to those not enrolled.
"These expansions appear to be cost-effective, with direct budgetary costs of $5.4 million per life saved and $179,000 per life-year," according to a summary of the working paper.
The researchers told the Times that the timing of the release of the working paper was not connected to Congress' current conversation around Medicaid, though they told the outlet that the debate made their findings especially relevant.
The Times described the research as "the most definitive study yet" on Medicaid's health effects and health economists not involved with the research described it as the most persuasive proof so far that Medicaid and other types of health insurance save lives.
Meanwhile, on Friday, efforts to pass the GOP megabill hit a stumbling block when a handful of Republican co-called "fiscal hawks" voted with Democrats on the U.S. House Budget Committee to block the reconciliation package from advancing through a key committee vote. The Republican hardliners voted no because they want more cuts to Medicaid.
After the vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a panel member, vowed that Democrats would "keep fighting to protect Medicaid and the American people."
In response to the House Budget Committee vote, Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy group Social Security Works said on Friday: "Make no mistake, Republicans still plan to bring it to the House floor next week."
Lawson blasted the proposed Medicaid cuts, writing that "their plan will kill people."
"The ripple effect of these cuts will hit every single person in this country," he added. "Unless you are a billionaire, your standard of living and your health care will get worse if this despicable plan becomes law."
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'No Family Should Have to Endure This': Georgia Doctors Keep Brain-Dead Woman Alive Under Abortion Ban
"I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," Adriana Smith's mother told an Atlanta news outlet.
May 16, 2025
Eight months after Georgia's abortion ban was reported to be the first post-Dobbs law under which a woman died because she was unable to get standard reproductive care, the state's so-called "heartbeat law" is back in the news as a family is being forced to keep a pregnant woman on life support to ensure her fetus can be delivered—even though she is legally dead.
Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse, was declared brain-dead in February when she was nine weeks pregnant, after she had suffered intense headaches and woke up gasping for air one night. Doctors at Northside Hospital in Atlanta found that she had blood clots in her brain.
She has been hooked up to breathing tubes and other life support devices, and doctors say they can't remove the machines for another three months, when they plan to deliver the fetus with which she is now 21 weeks pregnant.
Smith's mother, April Newkirk, has described the experience of watching her daughter remain alive despite her brain death "torture."
"I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there," she told local news affiliate WXIA.
Smith's five-year-old son is among the family members who continue to visit her in the hospital as they wait for her to reach 32 weeks of pregnancy.
"No family should have to endure this horror," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"Her family deserved the right to have decision-making power about her medical decisions," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, which has filed a lawsuit challenging Georgia's abortion ban, in a statement. "Instead, they have endured over 90 days of retraumatization, expensive medical costs, and the cruelty of being unable to resolve and move toward healing."
The family is angry that Georgia's law, which bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, when fetal cardiac activity—not a heartbeat—can be detected, does not include a provision allowing families a say in whether a pregnant person is kept on life support after being permanently incapacitated.
Doctors have told the family that the fetus may also suffer health problems due to fluid that's been detected on the brain.
"She's pregnant with my grandson," Newkirk told WXIA. "But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born."
Smith's fate after she became brain-dead "should have been left up to the family," Newkirk added.
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid said laws like the ban that went into effect in Georgia after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade show that the Republican Party doesn't "see women as human beings, but as incubators."
"Georgia bans organ donation of those who died without their consent—but Georgia's six-week abortion ban is now forcing a brain-dead woman to stay alive without her consent because she was nine weeks pregnant at time of brain death," said Rashid. "A corpse in Georgia has more rights over its body than do women. Horrific cruelty."
State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-7) said that "Adriana and her family deserve better."
"Even in death, Georgia Republicans have denied women bodily autonomy," she said. "This is cruel and inhumane."
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Charter-Cox $34.5 Billion Megamerger the 'Last Thing' Consumers Need: Watchdog
"However troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
May 16, 2025
Charter Communications and Cox Communications on Friday announced a $34.5 billion merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create the largest cable television and broadband provider by subscribers in the United States, sparking a flurry of monopoly concerns.
Charter, which uses the branding Spectrum, is already the second-largest publicly traded cable company, but coupling with the privately held Cox would push it ahead of the current industry leader, Comcast. According to a statement from the cable giants, the combined company would be known as Cox Communications, with Spectrum as the consumer-facing brand.
"The last thing American consumers need is yet another megamerger, as giant internet service providers and cable companies claim they need to get yet-larger to keep up with their industry peers," said John Bergmayer, legal director at the watchdog Public Knowledge, in a Friday statement.
"More consolidation won't fix the cable industry, and introducing new sets of competitive problems is no way to address existing ones," he continued. "As always with cable mergers, the question is as much a loss of opportunities for content creators and programmers to reach an audience, as the loss of choices to subscribers."
As NBC News—whose parent company is Comcast—reported:
On a Friday call with investors, Charter CEO Chris Winfrey called the deal "good for America" and said it will "return jobs from overseas and create new, good-paying customer service and sales careers."
The commentary comes as corporate deal activity has been slower than expected since President Donald Trump took office.
After Trump won the election, Wall Street rallied as many expected the regulatory environment to loosen and the floodgates to open for dealmakers and corporate leaders. But in the months following the election, companies have been contending with other factors rather than dealmaking, such as the Federal Communications Commission's investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and the outcome of Trump's tariffs.
The Charter-Cox deal could face scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr. Journalist George Chidi said on social media that "in a sane world, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and the FCC would block the merger of Cox Communications and Charter."
"Do I need to even complete this thought?" Chidi asked. "For the next three years and six months—assuming we are still having actual elections, it's corporate Christmas."
Public Knowledge's Bergmayer said that "however troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
Trump has a long record of forcefully going after his critics, and experts—including Daniel Stockemer, a professor at Canada's University of Ottawa, in a commentary published earlier this month in the journal Politics & Policy—have warned that with his second term, the president is pushing the United States toward autocracy.
"Will the companies drop cable channels critical of this administration, or agree to censor online content or sites that the administration disapproves of—something the loss of Title II and net neutrality makes all the more likely?" Bergmayer wondered. "Given FCC Chairman Carr's proven willingness to use the agency's power to 'further the president's agenda,' and the willingness of companies to agree to get deals done, what could once be dismissed as paranoid speculation becomes frighteningly plausible."
"From walking back—even reversing—company policies designed to promote diversity and inclusion, to pulling back on news coverage critical of the administration, far too many companies have already put the short-term interest of currying favor with the White House over the public interest, and over the interests of their employees and the communities they serve," he added. "Hopefully that does not happen here."
Emarketer analyst Ross Benes toldReuters that "antitrust concerns are legitimate. But in this era of deregulation, the merger would probably pass as long as they don't upset the president."
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