In this mailing: Alan M. Dershowitz: Four Police-Related Deaths and the Importance of Context Uzay Bulut: Turkey: Iranian-Kurdish Political Refugee to be Deported Four Police-Related Deaths and the Importance of Context by Alan M. Dershowitz  •  April 19, 2021 at 5:00 am       These four cases taken together, demonstrate the considerable disparity among cases involving police related deaths. Each case presents different facts, different legal considerations, different moral conclusions, and different lessons to be learned. Let us consider them each separately, as they deserve. Even if [Derek] Chauvin initially had the right to place his knee on Floyd's neck or shoulder, there was no reason to do so after Floyd had been handcuffed and subdued. [Officer Kim] Potter should not have been charged and should be acquitted if brought to trial. The decision to charge her was based not on the rule of law but on the demands of the crowds. [I]t is unclear whether Officer [Eric] Stillman knew Toledo was no longer armed when Stillman pulled the trigger less than a second after Toledo threw his gun behind the fence, out of the view of the officer. The refusal by radical anti-police bigots to acknowledge the dangers faced by decent, honest, non-racist police officers — which the vast, vast majority are — endangers us all. Justice is a double-edged virtue. We need justice for the victims of police misconduct, and we need justice for those falsely or excessively charged with police misconduct. [Congresswoman] Maxine Waters is seeking justice for neither. She is demanding vengeance without justice, without due process and without morality. The police must be held accountable for deliberately employing excessive, especially deadly, force against minority and other individuals. But they, too, must be accorded the presumption of innocence and the due process of law. (The city manager of Brooklyn Center, Minn. was apparently fired simply for saying that Kim Potter would be accorded due process!) The rule of law must govern every case, without the heavy thumb of the angry crowd on the scales of justice. (Image source: iStock) The world is focused on three police-related deaths: the killing of George Floyd by former Officer Derek Chauvin; the shooting of Daunte Wright by former Officer Kim Potter; and the shooting of Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old in Chicago, by Officer Eric Stillman. There is a fourth death that has not received comparable attention: Police Officer Darian Jarrott was murdered in cold blood by a career criminal, Omar Felix Cueva, whose car the officer stopped and politely asked for identification. These four cases taken together, demonstrate the considerable disparity among cases involving police-related deaths. Each case presents different facts, different legal considerations, different moral conclusions, and different lessons to be learned. Let us consider them each separately, as they deserve. Continue Reading Article Turkey: Iranian-Kurdish Political Refugee to be Deported by Uzay Bulut  •  April 19, 2021 at 4:00 am       An Iranian Kurdish political refugee, Afshin Sohrabzadeh, 31, who suffers from cancer and lives in Turkey, has been held in administrative detention for deportation -- for allegedly "threatening Turkey's security". He is currently being held in a removal center, and, if returned to Iran, he may well face the death penalty. On April 5, he visited the Eskisehir Immigration Office to get permission to visit a friend in Ankara. Instead, he was held in administrative detention and a decision was made by the authorities to deport him back to Iran. "Another option that will save Sohrabzadeh is that the UNCHR will step in and announce that he will be resettled in a third and safe country – other than Turkey or Iran." "As Turkey neighbours Iran, these refugees and their families continue to be exposed to the possibility of persecution by the Iranian intelligence agencies. At the same time, the Turkish immigration services are extremely reluctant to provide them with the administrative cooperation they need to complete their applications for asylum and resettlement in safer countries." – Reporters Without Borders, April 30, 2020. Turkey is bound by international law not to deport UN-recognized refugees. – Mahmut Kacan, Sohrabzadeh's lawyer, to Gatestone, April 2021. The UNCHR, the international media, and all human rights groups need to work to save Sohrabzadeh from arrest, torture and virtually certain death in Iran. (Image source: iStock) An Iranian Kurdish political refugee, Afshin Sohrabzadeh, 31, who suffers from cancer and lives in Turkey, has been held in administrative detention for deportation -- for allegedly "threatening Turkey's security". He is currently being held in a removal center, and, if returned to Iran, he may well face the death penalty. Sohrabzadeh, a political activist, was arrested and jailed in Iran in 2010, His lawyer, Mahmut Kacan, told Gatestone: "Sohrabzadeh was arrested by Iranian authorities for joining demonstrations protesting the controversial 2009 Iranian presidential elections in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won. Sohrabzadeh was then charged with being a member of the Kurdish Komala organization, with being 'an enemy of Allah' and with 'threatening Iranian national security.'" Continue Reading Article