Tag: violence

Third of US students say violence is acceptable response to speech

Over a third of US students believe it is acceptable to use violence to stop a speech on campus, according to a new survey.

The Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has published its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, an annual review of American universities’ speech protections and climate of open inquiry. When asked whether using violence to stop a public speaker on campus is acceptable, only 66% of students responded that the tactic is “never acceptable”. Meanwhile, 15% responded that violence is always or sometimes acceptable, with a further 19% saying that it was “rarely acceptable”. The combined 34% is a record figure.

FIRE’s rankings have been running since 2020, and this year’s instalment arrives off the back of continued protests on national campuses over the war in Gaza, as well as the Trump administration’s attempts to withhold funding from institutions whose speech policies are perceived as illiberal. Earlier this month, a federal court ruled that funding cuts imposed by the administration on Harvard violated the university’s rights. In July, Columbia University paid the White House a $200 million settlement having been accused of failing to prevent antisemitism on campus.

The 34% of students who at least occasionally defend the use of violence to interrupt a speech is an increase from the 32% who said the same last year. In 2022, that figure was 20%. There are also record numbers of students who think it is acceptable to shout down speakers (71%) and to block other students from attending a speech (54%).

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DC Grand Jury Declines to Indict DC Lawyer and West Point Grad Charged with Assaulting and Threatening to Kill National Guardsmen

A DC grand jury has once again declined to indict an individual charged with a serious crime against federal agents.

On Tuesday it was reported that a DC grand jury declined to indict a DC attorney and West Point grad charged with assaulting and threatening to kill National Guardsmen last month.

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro charged Paul Bryant for physically assaulting a National Guardsman patrolling the streets of DC on Trump’s orders.

Bryant threatened the guardsmen and said, “I’ll kill you.”

“The charges against Bryant are the most serious yet to be rejected by a grand jury. One count against him under a D.C. Code statute for threats to injure another person carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Another count for threatening a federal official carries a maximum of 10 years,” WUSA9 reported.

WUSA9 reported:

A federal grand jury has declined to indict a D.C. lawyer accused of assaulting and threatening members of the National Guard, WUSA9 has learned.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office informed a magistrate judge Tuesday that grand jurors had returned a no true bill for Paul Anthony Bryant, according to two people familiar with the matter. The rejection is at least the eighth time in the last month a grand jury has declined to charge felonies sought by Pirro’s office.

Bryant was arrested roughly an hour-and-a-half after an alleged Aug. 24 incident involving members of the National Guard who were patrolling on 14th Street Northwest as part of President Donald Trump’s federal surge in D.C. In an affidavit filed in federal court, investigators accused Bryant of approaching the Guardsmen while yelling things, including “These are our streets!” and, allegedly, “I’ll kill you.” Before leaving the area, according to the affidavit, Bryant “threw his left shoulder” into one of the Guardsmen’s shoulders.

Bryant, a graduate of West Point and Columbia Law School, told a judge the charges were “baseless” and derided prosecutors for filing a case predicated on hearsay. Because members of the National Guard patrolling D.C. do not wear body cameras, Bryant’s attorney said there is no video of the alleged incident.

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Nineteen killed in Nepal in ‘Gen Z’ protest over social media ban, corruption

At least 19 people in two cities died on Monday in Nepal’s worst unrest in decades, authorities said, as police in the capital fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters trying to storm parliament in anger at a social media shutdown and corruption.

Some of the protesters, most of them young, forced their way into the parliament complex in Kathmandu by breaking through a barricade, a local official said, setting fire to an ambulance and hurling objects at lines of riot police guarding the legislature.

“The police have been firing indiscriminately,” one protester told the ANI news agency. “(They) fired bullets which missed me but hit a friend who was standing behind me. He was hit in the hand.”

More than 100 people including 28 police personnel were receiving medical treatment for their injuries, police officer Shekhar Khanal told Reuters. Protesters were ferrying the injured to hospital on motorcycles.

A government decision last week to block access to several social media platforms, including Meta Platforms’ (META.O), opens new tab Facebook, has fuelled anger among the young. About 90% of Nepal’s 30 million people use the internet.

Officials said they imposed the ban because platforms had failed to register with authorities in a crackdown on misuse, including false social media accounts used to spread hate speech and fake news, and commit fraud.

Two of the 19 people were killed when protests in the eastern city of Itahari turned violent, police said.

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Nepal’s PM quits and flees as his house is burned down by protesters who also chase finance minister through streets and attack him following outcry over social media ban

Nepal’s Prime Minister has resigned and fled after protesters burned down his house and chased his finance minister through the streets before attacking him, following public fury over a social media ban. 

Young Nepalis are leading angry protests across the country, with violence spreading in the capital and other cities. 

After enraged crowds torched KP Sharma Oli’s home, a new video footage has shown how Bishnu Prasad Paudel was pursued and set upon by a mob through the streets of Kathmandu.  

In the shocking clip, Paudel, 65, is seen sprinting down a road as dozens run after him. A protester coming from the other side leaps and kicks him, sending him crashing against a red wall.

The government official quickly gets up, stumbles, but starts running again before the video ends. Paudel, who doubles as the deputy prime minister of the country, has faced intense criticism since he began running Nepal’s economic affairs last year. 

Meanwhile, Oli, 73, stepped down a day after one of the bloodiest crackdowns in years left at least 19 dead. 

He had only begun his fourth term last year, following a coalition deal between his Communist Party and the centre-left Nepali Congress.

His departure came after three other ministers also resigned, even though the government had lifted the ban on social media. The country’s president, Ram Chandra Poudel, has now started the process of selecting a new leader. 

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HORROR: Career Criminal with Six Violent Arrests Released From Jail Rapes 4-Year-Old Child, Gives Her STD

Another monster released from jail has committed a heinous crime.

A career criminal with six violent arrests was released from jail, and weeks later, he raped a 4-year-old child and gave her a sexually transmitted disease.

Anthony Jelks, 25, was “well known” to Baton Rouge police because he has a history of violent arrests going back several years.

Just weeks after being released from prison after his most recent arrest, Anthony Jelks is accused of raping a little girl and giving her an STD.

“We’ve arrested him six times over the last 6 or 7 years,” Baton Rouge Police Chief T.J. Morse told WAFB. “Everything from firearms charges to domestic abuse battery, violation of protective orders. He’s currently on probation.”

WAFB obtained court documents revealing Jelks was previously arrested for punching a woman in the face, domestic abuse battery with serious bodily injury, child endangerment, and other firearms charges.

According to police, Jelks raped a child on August 1, just weeks after he was released from jail, and gave her Chlamydia.

Jelks finally turned himself in to the authorities on Monday morning.

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‘Political Coup’: Turkish Opposition’s Istanbul HQ Seized By Police Amid Clashes

Istanbul is on edge and on the brink of more violence amid Erdogan’s ongoing crackdown on the country’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which on Sunday urged citizens and residents of Istanbul to take to the streets and gather after police set up barricades in areas around its Istanbul headquarters.

Authorities are blaming CHP officials for causing unrest while disrupting the public order, after hours of mayhem. The scene outside CHP Istanbul Provincial Headquarters was of tense police clashes with protesters, after which the court-appointed interim leader of CHP finally entered the party’s office under police protection.

Last Tuesday a top Turkish court annulled the results of the CHP’s 2023 Istanbul provincial congress, over alleged bribery that influenced delegate votes. This resulted in the court-ordered the dismissal of the board members elected at that congress.

The CHP has rejected the ruling and the bribery claims in particular, arguing that the court has no authority to override final decisions made at the party congress.

The court had named former CHP deputy chair Gürsel Tekin as interim provincial head, replacing Özgur Çelik. The CHP plans will hold an extraordinary congress on September 21, to reassert autonomy and fight back against what it says is a politically motivated persecution by Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

The state-backed targeting of CHP leadership, by the AKP-stacked courts (among law enforcement institutions and prosecutors as well), has only increased in the wake its widespread success in the 2024 local elections.

Clashes amid the fight to defend CHP HQ from police enforcing court ordered leadership change…

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Belgium to Deploy Military to Multicultural Capital Brussels to Combat Drug Gangs

Drug gang crime has become so out of control in Brussels that military forces will be deployed to the Belgian capital, the government announced this weekend.

The increasingly violent situation in Brussels, fueled in large part by drug gangs often of North African descent, such as the infamous multinational Morco Mafia, has spurred the government to take drastic action in the multicultural city, in which around four in ten residents are now foreign nationals.

Minister of the Interior Bernard Quintin told De Standaard: “We don’t want to lose domestic territory… The army must defend the integrity of the territory. Military personnel usually do this at our borders or far beyond. But the war against drug crime also falls under the protection of our territory.”

“Only the modalities still need to be worked out,” Quintin added. “Anyone who doesn’t see an emergency situation now has been living on a different planet for the past year.”

The Interior Minister said that he was inspired by a recent conversation with a local police officer, who told him that drug gangs are “not afraid of the blue anymore,” but they still fear the military uniforms of soldiers.

“By deploying the army, the state demonstrates its willingness to use all its power for the safety of its citizens,” he said, adding that soldiers will be deployed in mixed units with police.

Although Quintin denied that there are any “no-go zones in Belgium yet, he warned that “there are places where it is difficult and that we are in danger of losing.”

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YouTube commenter arrested after allegedly posting threat to ‘shoot and skin’ Black preschoolers

A North Carolina man is facing federal charges over a comment posted online in which he allegedly threatened to “shoot up a black pre-school,” after which the victims would be “skinned,” according to an FBI probable cause affidavit reviewed by The Independent.

Zachary Charles Newell, 25, was arrested Monday on one count of making an interstate threat to kidnap or injure.

On Sunday, a cybercrime team at Google flagged a disturbingly violent YouTube comment to the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center, the affidavit states. It says the comment had been uploaded to the video-sharing site four days prior, at 10:37 a.m. local time, by a user with the screenname “CommentatorsHateMe.”

Posted beneath a video by YouTuber “Andrew Esquire,” a Florida lawyer whose real name is Andrew Clifford d’Adesky, CommentatorsHateMe wrote, “I’m gonna shoot up a black pre-school. 20 black babies will be shot and then skinned like the animals they are,” the affidavit goes on.

In the video, d’Adesky was discussing a reported Los Angeles police investigation into Raja Jackson, an MMA fighter who apparently went off-script while making an appearance in a professional wrestling match and put his opponent in the hospital with severe injuries.

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The Transgender Shooter, The Socialist Rifle Association, And The Alarming Rise Of Far-Left Militancy

Last week, Minneapolis was the scene of a nightmare. A transgender shooter stormed into a church, murdered two children, and then turned the gun on himself. Tragedy struck at the intersection of ideology and violence, but while the mainstream press will quietly move on from this story, the details demand closer inspection.

In the aftermath, investigators uncovered the shooter’s personal journal. On it, a sticker of a gay pride flag emblazoned with an assault rifle and the words “defend equality.” That very same flag is also displayed by the Minneapolis chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), a self-proclaimed left-wing gun club that advocates armed struggle. Andy Ngo shared the images here.

Say what you will about America’s increasingly bitter culture wars, but we cannot ignore the fact that much of the rhetoric surrounding the modern trans movement isn’t just about self-defense, but about “fighting back,” like this flyer, advocating for a trans day of vengeance.

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A Chicago Democrat’s Deranged Explanation for His City’s Violent Weekend

Democrats around the country are test driving different responses to President Trump’s (quite successful) crime crackdown in Washington, DC — which he is threatening to impose elsewhere, albeit under different authorities and jurisdictional constraints, given the capital’s unique status as a federal district.  In DC itself, Mayor Bowser surprised many last week by acknowledging the dramatic reduction in crime and sounding positive about the federal-local partnership achieving those results.  She enraged leftists in the process, but adopting a ‘plummeting crime is good’ position is typically very safe terrain for a politician.  California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been trolling Trump for weeks, so when he rolled out new anti-crime squads in his state, he had to do so with all sorts of requisite criticisms of the president.  But his action alone was something of a nod to the reality Trump has been highlighting: Crime remains far too elevated in large swaths of the country, very much including on the West Coast.  It has been the Democrats of Illinois who seem to have planted their heads in the sand as aggressively as possible, shouting resistance slogans into that dust while rampant crime rages around them.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has achieved historic, breathtakingly low approval ratings, repeatedly refused to answer whether thousands of more local police on the beat would help reduce crime in his city (which has led the nation in murders for more than a dozen years running).  He’s against what he calls an unconstitutional Trump intervention and “military occupation,” you see, but he’s also against more local enforcement.

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