WikiLeak's Julian Assange Released From UK Prison Returning Home

Supporters campaigned relentlessly for Assange's release [File: Alberto Pezzali/AP Photo]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will this week be freed by pleading guilty to breaking US espionage laws, in a deal that would end his detention in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia, ending a long legal odyssey.

Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to one criminal charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents, according to a filing in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Earlier in the day, court documents revealed that Assange is expected to plead guilty to a US espionage charge as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

"Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK," WikiLeaks said on X.

JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE

Julian Assange is free. He left Belmarsh maximum security prison on the morning of 24 June, after having spent 1901 days there. He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a…

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 24, 2024

The statement confirmed reports that Assange has a deal with the US Department of Justice, which is yet to be formally finalized.

Assange, an Australian citizen, was transferred to London's high-security Belmarsh prison in April 2019 on bail breach charges. In the US, he faced prosecution under the Espionage Act for obtaining and disclosing classified information that shed light on war crimes and human rights violations committed by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A video posted on X by Wikileaks showed Assange dressed in a blue shirt and jeans signing a document before boarding a private jet.

Julian Assange boards flight at London Stansted Airport at 5PM (BST) Monday June 24th. This is for everyone who worked for his freedom: thank you.#FreedJulianAssange pic.twitter.com/Pqp5pBAhSQ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) June 25, 2024

He will return to Australia after the hearing, the Wikileaks statement added, referring to the hearing in Saipan. Australia's government, which has been pressing for Assange's release, had no immediate comment.

A lawyer for Assange did not immediately respond to a request for comment. WikiLeaks in 2010 released hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. military documents on Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - the largest security breaches of their kind in U.S. military history - along with swaths of diplomatic cables.

Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump's administration over WikiLeaks' mass release of secret U.S. documents, which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

The trove of more than 700,000 documents included diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts such as a 2007 video of a U.S. Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people including two Reuters news staff. That video was released in 2010.

The charges against Assange sparked outrage among his many global supporters who have long argued that Assange as the publisher of Wikileaks should not face charges typically used against federal government employees who steal or leak information.

Many press freedom advocates have argued that criminally charging Assange represents a threat to free speech. An Australian government spokesperson said: "Prime Minister (Anthony) Albanese has been clear - Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration."

Assange was first arrested in Britain in 2010 on a European arrest warrant after Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over sex-crime allegations that were later dropped. He fled to Ecuador's embassy, where he remained for seven years, to avoid extradition to Sweden.

He was dragged out of the embassy in 2019 and jailed for skipping bail. He has been in London's Belmarsh top security jail ever since, from where he has for almost five years been fighting extradition to the United States.

Those five years of confinement are similar to the sentence imposed on Reality Winner, an Air Force veteran and former intelligence contractor, who was sentenced to 63 months after she removed classified materials and mailed them to a news outlet.

While in Belmarsh Assange married his partner Stella with whom he had two children while he was holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy.

How children starve In Gaza - Hunger is taking a toll on the bodies of children the impact can last a lifetime

In Gaza, hunger is taking a toll on the bodies of children. The impact can last a lifetime. Nearly 166 million people worldwide are estimated to need urgent action against hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global partnership which measures food insecurity.

That includes nearly everyone in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military launched an offensive in October following an attack on Israel by Hamas militants. More than one million of Gaza’s inhabitants face the most extreme form of malnutrition – classified by the IPC as ‘Catastrophe or Famine.’

Seven-month-old Majd Salem is one of them.

Born on Nov. 1, three weeks after Israel launched the offensive, the child was being treated for a chest infection in the neonatal ICU at Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza on May 9. The nurse caring for him said he was suffering from severe malnutrition.

Majd was born at a healthy weight of 3.5 kg (7.7 pounds), said his mother, Nisreen al-Khateeb.

By May, when he was six months old, his weight had barely changed to 3.8 kg, she said – around 3 kg less than would be expected for a baby his age.

Majd, whose eyes keenly followed visiting reporters in the ward, had to be given antibiotics for the infection and fortified milk to boost his weight, his mother said. Reuters was unable to trace them after May 21, when the hospital was evacuated following an Israeli raid.

One in three children in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished or suffering from wasting, according to the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, citing data from its partners on the ground. Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media office, said their records showed 33 people had died of malnutrition in Gaza including 29 children, but added that the number could be higher.

COGAT, an Israeli defence ministry agency tasked with coordinating aid deliveries into Palestinian territories, did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Israel’s foreign ministry in late May issued a detailed statement questioning the IPC’s methods of analysis, which it said omitted measures Israel had taken to improve access to food in Gaza. The IPC declined to comment.

The plight of Gaza’s children is part of a bigger trend. Globally last year more than 36 million children under 5 were acutely malnourished, nearly 10 million of them severely, according to the Global Report on Food Crises, a collaborative analysis of food insecurity by 16 international organizations.

The food shortage in Gaza, while particularly widespread, comes amid a broader spike in extreme hunger as conflicts around the world intensify.

Two other countries – South Sudan and Mali – each have thousands of people living in zones listed on the IPC website as facing famine. Another 35 – including Sudan, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo – have many people in the IPC’s next-most acute category of food deprivation.

The IPC, a grouping of United Nations agencies, national governments and non-governmental organizations, is expected to update its assessment of the picture in war-torn Sudan in coming weeks. A preliminary projection reported by Reuters earlier this month said as many as 756,000 people in Sudan could face catastrophic food shortages by September.

Gaza’s hunger crisis is also a product of war. The Israeli terrorists military invaded the Strip in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border assault by Hamas on Israel. More than 37,000 Palestinians and nearly 1,500 Israelis have been killed since then, Gazan and Israeli tallies show.

The Israeli terrorists assault has destroyed swathes of Gazan farmland. In the early days of the war, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza. It later allowed some humanitarian supplies to enter but is still facing international calls to let in more.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, in seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, last month accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, among other alleged crimes. Netanyahu, calling that move “a moral outrage of historic proportions,” said Israel is fighting in full compliance with international law and taking unprecedented measures to ensure aid reaches those in need.

Israel Terrorists has accused Hamas of stealing aid, which Hamas strongly denies. Israel has also said any distribution problems within Gaza are the fault of the international agencies.

Even when children survive, nutrition experts say food deprivation in the early years can do lasting damage.

A child’s brain develops at its fastest rate in the first two years of life. So even if they don't starve to death or die from illness due to their weakened immune system, children may face delays in growth and development, said Aashima Garg, adviser on nutrition at UNICEF for the Middle East and North Africa.

“While they may be alive, they may not thrive that well in childhood and beyond,” she said.

Three families in Gaza told Reuters about their day-to-day diets, and four global health experts explained how such deprivation affects the growing body. Damage done in weeks manifests over years, they said.

“It can have a long-term impact on their immune system, their ability to absorb good nutrition, and on their cognitive and physical development,” said Hannah Stephenson, global head of nutrition and health at Save The Children, a non-profit.

FIRST DAYS

Gaza has the most households globally in the most extreme stage of food poverty, according to the IPC, which classifies levels of hunger in five categories, the worst of which is famine.

Households in North Gaza, where Majd lives, are already suffering a full-blown famine, Cindy McCain, Executive Director of the World Food Programme, said on May 5.

It can take months for the international measurement system to declare a famine. But the first damage to a child’s body is counted in days.

Nine out of 10 children aged 6 months to 2 years in Gaza live in severe child food poverty, a UNICEF survey in late May found. This means they are eating from two or fewer food groups a day, which UNICEF’s Garg said means grains or some form of milk.

This has been the case since December 2023, with only a slight improvement in April 2024, she said. As many as 85% of children of all ages did not eat for a whole day at least once in the three days before the survey was conducted.

The main cause of acute malnutrition in North Gaza is a lack of diversity in the diets of children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, according to a report in February 2024 from the Global Nutrition Cluster, a group of humanitarian agencies led by UNICEF.

This deficient intake, both prior to and during pregnancy and breastfeeding, harms both mothers and infants.

Abed Abu Mustafa, 49, a father of six, was still living in Gaza City in early April. He said people there already had eaten “almost every green plant we could find” and he hadn’t had meat or chicken for at least five months.

In Rafah in the south, Mariam, 33, a mother of five, has been living in a school along with two dozen of her relatives. She described a typical meal for her family before the conflict and what they are currently eating, shown below.

Before the war, Majd’s mother said an average family meal consisted of rice with chicken or meat, along with vegetables such as okra, cauliflower or peas. During the war, flour scarcity forced the family to make bread from animal feed. Recently, bread and canned goods like tuna and beans started to reappear, but these are not widely available.

Unable to find food to feed herself and forced to flee Israeli bombardment early in the war, Khateeb said she had found great difficulty in breastfeeding Majd.

She said she could find neither good quality baby formula nor clean water to mix it, so she fed him various types of powdered feed mixed with rainwater or brackish water from Gaza's polluted wells, causing diarrhoea.

“There is no chance to get proper food to have breastmilk, there is no meat, no proteins, no calcium, none of the elements that produce good milk for the child,” she said.

Garg, the UNICEF adviser, said the nutrition of breastfeeding mothers in Gaza was severely compromised, and with it their ability to produce milk.

“They are not eating fruits and vegetables. They are not eating meat. They are not having much milk,” she said. This lack of nutrients translates into poor quality breast milk. Diluted formula is not safe and risks diarrhoea, which itself can be deadly.

Moderately malnourished mothers can still breastfeed, with their bodies effectively sacrificing their own nutritional needs to save the child. But severely malnourished women struggle.

Ahmed al-Kahlout, the nurse who heads the unit, said Majd’s infection was due to malnutrition

“There is no immunity, so any disease that the child catches in the shelters … afflicts the child with these severe lung infections,” he said.

Susceptibility to infections typically increases after two weeks with insufficient food.

The body’s consumption of its fat reserves eats away muscle tissue, which is why aid workers in the field use basic tape measures to assess the gravity of children’s conditions.

The tapes measuring Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) have been used for decades. If the upper arm’s circumference is 11.5 cm (4 1/2 inches) or smaller for a child between 6 months and 5 years old, the child is assessed as having severe acute malnutrition, according to standards drawn up by the United Nations.

MUAC screening data across Gaza since mid-January found more than 7,000 children aged 6 months to about 5 years were already acutely malnourished as of May 26, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said.

This is how that looks.

Gaza has the most people at risk of starvation, but according to the IPC classifications, many millions are one step behind the enclave in food poverty.

The IPC categorises the severity and scale of food insecurity and malnutrition. Readings of 3, 4 or 5 on the five-category scale require urgent action.

Households in Phase 3 are in “Crisis,” the IPC says. They have high or more than usual acute malnutrition, or can meet their minimum food needs but only by selling assets or through crisis measures.

Phase 4 is an “Emergency.” Households have either “very high” acute malnutrition and death rates or are only able to make up for the lack of food by taking emergency measures and selling assets.

Phase 5 is “Catastrophe” or “Famine.” Households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs and starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. An entire area is only classified as in Famine if high food insecurity comes with certain levels of acute malnutrition and mortality.

For the IPC, areas in Famine meet at least two of the following three criteria:

• The area has at least 20% of households facing an extreme lack of food,



• About one in three children there suffer from acute malnutrition,



• Two adults or four children out of every 10,000 die each day due to outright starvation, or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

The IPC report issued in March projected that the entire population of the Gaza Strip would fall into Phases 3 to 5 between March and July. U.N. officials told Reuters they expect the next IPC analysis on Gaza to be released on June 25.

South Sudan and Mali are the other two other countries with households projected to fall into the same Phase 5 category as Gaza, based on the IPC’s latest published analyses.

Overall, the three countries with the largest numbers of people at Phase 3 and above are Nigeria (25 million), Democratic Republic of Congo (23.4 million) and Sudan (17.7 million), according to the IPC website.

The IPC said its latest analysis of Sudan, conducted in December, was too outdated to include in the tables Reuters used for this chart.

As a consequence of severe malnutrition, various complications arise.

This is the impact of starvation after just three weeks. Like many children in Gaza, Majd’s lack of adequate food dates back months.

Photographs

Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Saleh Salem in Doha, Michelle Nichols in Washington, DC and Jennifer Rigby and Aidan Lewis in London

Sources

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC); Global Nutrition Cluster; Reuters reporting

Edited by

Simon Scarr and Sara Ledwith

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US Escalated Ukraine Conflict on New Level by Facilitating Terror Strike on Sevastopol

© Sputnik / Konstantin Mihalchevskiy / Go to the mediabank

A US RQ-4 Global Hawk drone was in the airspace over the Black Sea southeast of Crimea at the time of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' attack on Sevastopol using cluster-armed ATACMS missiles.

Washington's involvement in the Ukrainian missile strike on Sevastopol is undeniable, given that it was conducted with the US-made ATACMS missiles programmed by American specialists, while a US RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone was operating near Crimea that day, Russia's Foreign Ministry stated on June 24.

"The US is very complicit in this," Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and international consultant, told Sputnik, commenting on the Ukrainian missile attack. "It had cluster bombs as munitions as well. Typically, for most countries it is not acceptable."

The expert said it was "highly likely the Global Hawk was providing reconnaissance, targeting information and potentially guidance information for the ATACMS itself."

"ATACMS… essentially needs to coordinate with something. So, typically a lot of times drones' or satellite information are used to help guide the target and guide the missile," Rasmussen explained. "ATACMS is pre-programed to some degree. But to ensure that it gets to its destination, there's definitely communication of some type with an aerial drone system."

On Sunday at 12:15 pm local time, Ukraine attacked the Russian city of Sevastopol with five ATACMS missiles equipped with cluster bomblets. Russian air defenses intercepted four missiles, but the explosion of the fifth cluster warhead led to the death of four civilians with 153 more injured, according to local authroirties.

The US government admitted in October 2023 that it had covertly provided Ukraine with a model of ATACMS with a range 165 kilometers. Longer-range ATACMS, capable of striking targets at a distance of up to 300 kilometers, were secretly included in the $300 million aid package and delivered to Ukraine in April.

Both ATACMS variants have cluster warheads, prohibited by the international Convention on Cluster Munitions — which the US declined to sign.

In May, Politico reported that after Ukraine received ATACMS missiles, it also expressed interest in obtaining MQ-9 Reaper spy drones from the US, stressing that it needs new surveillance capabilities to strike Russian targets "deep behind the front lines."

EurasianTimes commentators suggested that "with the acquisition of the 300-kilometer-range variant of ATACMS, the thinking in Ukraine is that pairing it with an established unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) is the only way to attain some gains in the large artillery and ground systems-centric war."

The Defense Post also reported that US-made ATACMS and MQ-9 Reapers "could work in tandem in Ukraine, with the Reaper collecting target information and the ATACMS ensuring precision strikes."

The US has repeatedly refused to provide its sophisticated drone systems to Ukraine, fearing that they would be shot down and captured by Russian forces. But the Pentagon and its NATO allies have manned electronic intelligence planes and surveillance drones constantly circling over the Black Sea, south of Crimea.

"The Global Hawk… has a long flight duration... It can be up in the air for over 30 hours and has a very long range, both from a flight perspective as well as from a reconnaissance perspective as far as providing detailed information," said Rasmussen. "It can provide very precise information down to less than a meter and basically a third of a meter diameter area."

The military expert emphasized that Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia cannot affect the balance of power on the battlefield in the zone of special military operation.

He argued that the strike on Sevastopol was aimed at the civilian population to prompt "some type of concern there, to provoke some type of uprising or dissatisfaction with the government."

"Targeting the Russian population, we've got some dream here of some of the neocons that are very influential, of overthrowing the government and dismantling Russia," Rasmussen said. "We've heard comments from both the EU as well as US leadership, senior leaders regarding that. So it's just based on their discussions. Is that rhetoric? Perhaps. But there are ulterior motives in this and it's beyond the battlefield itself."

The expert expects that Washington would play down the recent slaughter of civilians in Sevastopol as 'collateral damage', but the problem remains that the US not only provided Ukraine with long-range weaponry but is "actually facilitating the use of it."

"It definitely looks like the US has kind of escalated this one more level," Rasmussen said. "And the role that it's playing in not just authorizing the use for long range, but actually playing a role in facilitating the execution of these long range targeting efforts into Russia," warning that the attack "drags the US very, very much right into the war."

Ukraine Broke International Law With Cluster Bomb Attack on Sevastopol - UN Human Rights Watchdog

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) told Sputnik on Monday that the organization is aware of the attacks on a beach in Sevastopol and is verifying the information.

"We have seen the reports about a large number of casualties, including, disturbingly, many children, in an attack in Sevastopol on Sunday, and that local authorities have issued statements that these casualties resulted from the use of cluster munitions. We are trying to verify as much information as we can about this incident, including the number of civilian casualties and the weapon used. We do not have access to the Crimean peninsula, despite repeated requests," the UN agency said.

While the use of cluster munitions is not per se prohibited under international humanitarian law, "it is the consistent position of the UN Human Rights Office that their use in populated areas is incompatible with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law governing the conduct of hostilities," the agency added.

"We urge the Russian Federation and Ukraine to join the more than 100 States that have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions which comprehensively bans their use," the OHCHR said.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian armed forces attacked Sevastopol, using US-made ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads, four of which were shot down and one deflected and exploded over the city. The attack killed at least four people and injured more than 150 others.

US Involvement in Sevastopol Attack is Undeniable - Russian Foreign Ministry

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that US involvement in the missile strike on Sevastopol is beyond doubt, claiming that Washington and its allies have established a neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.

"On June 23, the Kiev regime, with the support of the US and their satellites, committed yet another monstrous terrorist crime against the peaceful population of Russia," the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

"Sevastopol was targeted. The attack was deliberately timed to coincide with one of the most significant Orthodox holidays — Trinity Day," the statement on the ministry's website continued. "According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, American ATACMS tactical missiles equipped with cluster warheads were used to enhance destructive capability."

The ministry stressed that all targeting for ATACMS missiles programmed by US specialists using their own country's satellite reconnaissance data, while a US RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone was operating near Crimea that day.

"The involvement of the US in this sinister crime leaves no room for doubt," the Foreign Ministry charged.

"Washington and its satellites created and nurtured a neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, actively fostering and supporting their Ukrainian puppets, leading them in a war against Russia, and inciting them to commit acts of international terrorism and the murder of peaceful Russian citizens, including using one of the most inhumane types of weapons — cluster munitions," it said.

"A response to this crime will surely follow," the ministry assured.

Ukraine fired five US-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles with cluster warheads at the Crimean port city early on Sunday afternoon. Four missiles were shot down while the fifth exploded over the city, killing at least four people, including two children, and injuring 153 others.

North Carolina Proposed Ban Face Masks in public - What's up?

Commuters wait for the subway in New York on June 14. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul says she is considering a ban on face masks in the New York City subway system, following what she described as concerns over people shielding their identities while committing antisemitic acts. (Seth Wenig/AP)

Now masks are going from mandated to criminalized in some states of the U.S. Recently, lawmakers in North Carolina and New York say mask bans in response to pro-Palestinian protests would not target medical mask wearing, but critics are skeptical.

State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinian protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among covid-cautious Americans.

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said earlier this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident where masked protesters on a train shouted, “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces.

Decades-old laws against masking — often crafted in response to the hooded terror of the Ku Klux Klan — are on the books in at least 18 states and D.C., according to the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law. Lawmakers in some areas passed legislation to create health exemptions during the coronavirus pandemic while other authorities vowed not to enforce the statutes.

Immunocompromised Americans and civil libertarians who have long criticized mask bans as a cudgel against protesters of police shootings, economic inequality and environmental injustice say the bans are being revived because covid is no longer treated as a public health emergency. Coronavirus levels in wastewater are reaching high levels across much of the Sun Belt and Florida, early indications of a summer covid wave, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lawmakers eager to reinstate pre-pandemic mask restrictions say legislation would not target medically vulnerable people and others trying to avoid respiratory viruses. But critics say such an approach would be impractical and sets mask wearers up for further ostracization and harassment by police and fellow citizens.

The day after the North Carolina House passed its anti-masking bill in June in response to pro-Palestinian protests at the University of North Carolina, Shari Stuart said a man confronted her for wearing a surgical mask when she walked into an auto service center in the Raleigh area to get an oil change. After she tried to explain that she has Stage 4 breast cancer and a weakened immune system, Stuart said the man called her a “f---ing liberal” and insisted masks were now illegal. He later coughed on her and said he hoped the cancer would kill her.

Stuart, who first shared her experience with a local television station, said she worries this kind of harassment would worsen if mask restrictions became law despite language in the bill permitting the wearing of “a medical or surgical grade mask for the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious disease.”

“People are still going to think you are breaking the law if you’re wearing a mask. They don’t care what’s wrong with you,” Stuart told The Washington Post. “I’ve thought I should wear masks with something printed on it like ‘immune deficient’ or ‘cancer patient.’ But we should not have to do that.”

Others fear people of color will face the brunt of enforcement.

“Any time you see these kind of laws where we are mandating a certain thing someone can do with their body, who is going to be most affected by that? Black and Brown people,” said Diana Cejas, a Black pediatric neurologist in Chapel Hill, who masks in part because she faces elevated risk from respiratory illness because of scar tissue around her airways from cancer treatment. “At the same time, I’m not going to let it deter me from trying to keep myself safe and my patients safe.”

In a statement accompanying his veto, Cooper said the legislation “removes protections and threatens criminal charges for people who want to protect their health by wearing a mask.”

GOP lawmakers have called such concerns overblown because of the bill’s health exception. Republicans have enough votes in their majority to overturn Cooper’s veto.

“Bad actors have been using masks to conceal their identity when they commit crimes and intimidate the innocent,” state Sen. Danny Earl Britt, Jr. (R), one of the bill’s sponsors, said in a statement. “Instead of helping put an end to this threatening behavior, the governor wants to continue encouraging these thugs by giving them more time to hide from the consequences of their actions. I look forward to casting a vote to override this veto and allowing those with actual health concerns to protect themselves and others.”

Opponents of mask restrictions question how a health exception could work if protesters wearing medical grade masks say they’re trying to stay healthy in a crowd.

“I don’t understand when there’s a political protest exactly how the authorities plan to sort out those who are wearing masks for health purposes versus those who are wearing masks to protect their identity,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union who has written about the issue. “It really sets up a situation where we are likely to see selective enforcement against protesters that the authorities don’t like.”

Sylvie Tuder, one of the protest organizers for the University of North Carolina chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, said attendees are encouraged to wear masks specifically to limit the spread of communicable disease and called the GOP bill an effort to suppress protest.

“As defenders of Palestinian life, it’s our duty to honor the real danger that infectious disease poses to all people, whether in Chapel Hill or in Palestine,” said Tuder, a doctoral student in sociology.

But Adam Goldstein, a medical professor at the University of North Carolina who supports the legislative efforts to restrict masking, said widespread masking creates an unsettling climate for Jewish faculty, staff and students harassed by people they cannot identify. Goldstein said a protester covering their face with a kaffiyeh, a scarf commonly worn at pro-Palestinian protests, approached him and shouted “intifada” while he held up a sign calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas.

He said people who face elevated risk from covid should be able to wear medical grade masks but does not believe masked demonstrators are motivated by public health because many use ineffective cloth coverings and masking was far less common on campus before the protests.

“You cannot just say you are selectively worried about it only when you are out there protesting,” Goldstein said. “If you are at high risk, you probably shouldn’t do high-risk activities like congregating in large public groups.”

In New York, Democratic leaders say the relaxation of mask rules early in the pandemic has now hampered police response to crime and antisemitism.

“We will not tolerate individuals using masks to evade responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior,” Hochul said at a news conference this month, adding that she wants to protect “legitimate” reasons to wear masks, including to avoid covid or the flu.

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) has also signaled support for restrictions.

Yaacov Behrman, a rabbi who favors masking restrictions with exceptions for public health, said he was recently harassed by a group of pro-Palestinian protesters, including some in masks who shouted “Zionists are not welcome here,” while he walked by the Brooklyn Museum wearing a kippah, a head covering worn by some Jewish men.

“They are using masks to harass and intimidate,” said Behrman, founder of the Jewish Future Alliance, a community advocacy group.

New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) has encouraged retail businesses to make customers pull down their masks when they enter to dissuade robberies. “I think now is the time to go back to the way it was pre-covid,” Adams said in a radio interview this month.

But some New Yorkers have embraced masking as a healthy habit in a crowded city of millions to avoid any airborne pathogen that can disrupt life.

Logan Grendel, a 46-year-old Harlem resident, credits regular masking on the subway for avoiding any respiratory illness since the pandemic started. “The fact I ever didn’t wear a mask on the subway is wild to me,” Grendel

Meredith Cann, a telehealth psychotherapist in Manhattan who largely serves immunocompromised and disabled people, said she has prospective clients seeking mental health care because they are terrified after hearing Hochul’s and Adams’s calls to limit masking.

“Average everyday people are going to hear what our governor and mayor are saying: People who wear masks are criminal,” said Cann, who receives weekly injections of an immunosuppressive drug for a chronic condition. “We are afraid for our quality of life and our ability to just exist in public.”