So Many Criminals

We need something like a war crimes tribunal when Trump is gone. 

To try the ICE agents (almost all of them) who broke the law, the military personnel who carried out unlawful orders to commit war crimes, to try everyone who enriched themselves with insider trading and by taking bribes, to punish the crimes committed by corrupt conservative SCOTUS justices in accepting bribes, to punish the Trump 2.0 officials who participated in defying court orders, to punish those who were deliberately indifferent to suffering at immigration detention centers, to punish Elon Musk and everyone else involved in illegal conduct a DOGE, to punish Trump family members who illegally represented the U.S. government (and themselves) in diplomacy without Congressional approval, and on and on and on.

Trump Cedes Africa To China

For better or for worse, the Trump administration's policy towards Africa is to completely withdraw from it: closing embassies, withdrawing any military presence there, withdrawing foreign aid, barring immigration, and discouraging trade with new tariffs. It isn't even seriously criticizing human rights violations there.

China is filling the vacuum that the U.S. departure is creating on all fronts.

I could source every point in this post from news stories. But I don't have the time for it right now (it might take a couple of hours), so this time, as an exception to my usual habit, I'm going to have to have you trust me that the points I'm making have solid backup that could be found and linked.

Bivens Narrowed Again

The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority isn't troubled at all by denying remedies to violations of the U.S. Constitution.

Bivens is a U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed suits for money damages against federal officials who violated selected constitutional rights, something Congress has failed to do by statute.

The order list [from today] include a unanimous per curiam opinion in Goldey v. Fields, No. 24–809 (S. Ct. June 30, 2024) (also available here), which involves an effort by a federal prisoner to sue federal prison officials for an Eighth Amendment violation alleging use of excessive force. The Court rules a Bivens suit is not available in a three-page opinion that concludes this way:

This case arises in a new context, and “special factors” counsel against recognizing an implied Bivens cause of action for Eighth Amendment excessive-force violations. To begin with, Congress has actively legislated in the area of prisoner litigation but has not enacted a statutory cause of action for money damages. See Ziglar, 582 U. S., at 148– 149. In addition, extending Bivens to allow an Eighth Amendment claim for excessive force could have negative systemic consequences for prison officials and the “inordinately difficult undertaking” of running a prison. Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 84–85 (1987). Moreover, “an alternative remedial structure” already exists for aggrieved federal prisoners. Ziglar, 582 U.S., at 137; see Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U. S. 61, 74 (2001). The existence of such alternative remedial procedures counsels against allowing Bivens suits even if such “procedures are ‘not as effective as an individual damages remedy.’” Egbert, 596 U.S., at 498.

For the past 45 years, this Court has consistently declined to extend Bivens to new contexts. See Egbert, 596 U.S., at 490–491. We do the same here.

Congress should extend 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to provide the same relief to violations of rights under the U.S. Constitution or federal law to violations committed under color of federal law. 

The claim that this would make it inordinately difficult to run federal prisons is at odds with the fact that an identical legal rule applies to all state and local prisons and jails, which house the lion's share of federal inmates (and a much larger share of violent criminals).

Observations Related To The Latest Conflict With Iran

In a nutshell, the most recent military conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the U.S. can be summed up as follows:

* Iran is getting close to developing nuclear weapons.

* Iran wants to remove Israel from the face of the Earth and that is why it is developing nuclear weapons.

* Iran has not very long ago launched missile and drone attacks on Israel.

* The Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank in Israel, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, are all Iranian proxy forces. Iran was deeply involved in facilitating the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

* Iran has had periodic military engagements with U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf.

* Israel carried out a major airstrike on Iran, mostly using F-35I stealth fighters with conformal fuel tanks to boost their range allowing them strike and return without aerial refueling, targeting Iran's nuclear program and key individuals in that program. Many of these targets were successfully struck and/or killed. But, one of Iran's most important nuclear facilities is in a very deep bunker in Iran.

* The U.S. used seven B-2 stealth bombers and with two "bunker buster" bombs each, to strike this very deep bunker with Iranian nuclear facilities (although probably only setting it back a few months), and used one of these and other carrier based aircraft to attack two other Iranian bases.

* It isn't clear that the U.S. has non-nuclear strike capabilities sufficient to truly destroy Iran's most secure nuclear program resources in its deepest bunker sufficiently to set its nuclear program back all that far.

* Before attacking Iran, the U.S. threatened it and evacuated personnel and ships from a U.S. naval base in Bahrain, and moved more carrier groups into the region.

* Iran counterattacked Israel and a U.S. military base in Qatar. Interceptor missiles apparently stopped all of the strikes on Qatar, and 80%-90% of the strikes on Israel, although this was not entirely successful and there was Israeli casualties. These defenses may not be sustainable, since Israel is running very low on key missile defense interceptor missiles that are part of its "Iron Dome" anti-missile and anti-drone defenses. But Iran's supply of effect long range missiles and armed drones and strike aircraft that can reach Israel is also not unlimited, and it has no quick source from which it can resupply itself (and Russia does not appear to want to get involved in this fight).

* Iran has been a major supplier of armed drones to Russia for it use in the Ukraine War.

* Iran has regularly interfered with shipping in the Persian Gulf and has a fairly impressive naval made up mostly of submarines and small missile boats, although it is building a drone carrier and has shipping container ballistic missiles as well.

* Many decades of sanctions have caused Iran to develop its own military industrial complex.

* Iran's government is officially under the supervision of a Shi'ite Islamic theocratic supreme leader since the Islamic revolution in 1979. But it has a democratic secular elected government, screened to remove candidates contrary to the regime or contrary to Shi'ite Islam, that has gradually been growing more powerful and more moderate. In part, this is because its economy is at least as dependent upon a diversified mercantile class as it is upon oil and gas exploitation (which is about 20% of its GDP) and agriculture.

* Iran is religiously diverse despite being a theocracy. It is home to many minority religions, that are tolerated, and its people are less religious in their daily lives and more secular leaning, than most countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and many other places in the Islamic world (like Pakistan and Afghanistan). Devout Shi'ite Muslims make up only a plurality of the population (about a third of the population) at most.

* Iran, not having the luxury of abundant oil wealth shared by a small population of citizens with real work done by temporary foreign laborers, like the Arab oil monarchies, has a substantial grass roots movement that wants fewer restrictions on women, more modernity, an identity that embraces its historical Persian roots rather than an exclusively Shi'ite Islamic national identity, more political freedom, and more freedom of speech. This said, there is wide grass roots opposition to and hate of Israel and the United States in Iran. In general, Shi'ite Muslims have been less backwards than Sunni Muslims in the Middle East. Iranians, and in particular, Iranian women, are also better educated than many Middle Eastern countries.

* But for its attacks and proxy attacks on Israel, its direct and indirect attacks on Persian Gulf and Red Sea commerce, its nuclear program, its military support for Russia, the sensible thing to do would be to allow Iran to percolate with its own internal conflicts and political developments without foreign interference. This would probably have led to considerable moderation and maybe even disestablishmentarianism, either politically or through a counterrevolution, sometime in the next five to twenty years. But, its violent foreign policy has made intervention more urgent.

* Israel was basically already at war with Iran and was entirely reasonable in taking action to prevent Iran from obtaining military capabilities that would be used to obliterate it.

* On the merits, U.S. military support for Israel in its strikes on Iran's nuclear capabilities was not unreasonable.

* The U.S. has, without really intending to do so, defanged Iran's main potential military opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan, through invasions of those countries, freeing up Iran's military resources to take on Israel and to interfere with Persian Gulf trade and to become an arms supplier to Russia.

* Neither the Israeli strikes nor the U.S. strikes appear to have done all that much to degrade Iran's air defenses, its air forces, its drone forces, its long range missile capabilities, its Persian Gulf navy, its anti-ship missiles, or the military industrial complex it uses to supply itself, Russia, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah. But, if the U.S. and Israel are going to be attacking Iran anyway, those seem like sensible additional targets.

* A sustained ground invasion of Iran makes no military sense. There is no likely scenario in which the U.S. sends hundreds of thousand of U.S. group troops to Iran, possibly as part of a multi-national coalition like those in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or needs to new military draft. This a a conflict involving strikes with aircraft, missiles, and drones, and defenses against counterattacks by similar means and at sea, and in terror attacks (most likely not primarily on U.S. soil, and more like the U.S.S. Cole attack by al Qaeda on October 12, 2000 in Yemen, and Shi'ite militia attacks on U.S. forces in Syria and Jordan in the waning days of the Syrian civil war).

* It isn't at all obvious that regime change can be achieved in Iran without a ground invasion, or that killing key political and theocratic leaders in Iran would result in much of a change in Iranian policies. Indeed, attacks by Israel and the U.S. on Iran probably strengthen the regime against these common enemies in the short run. Iran has plenty of adequate potential successors to its current leaders who wouldn't seem much different in their policies towards Israel, the U.S., and maritime commerce.

* A claimed U.S. brokered cease fire hasn't really held at all, for even t twenty-four hours.

* The Israeli-U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear program wouldn't have been necessary if Trump hadn't ended an Obama negotiated deal with Iran related to its nuclear program in 2018.

* Both Israel's leadership and the U.S. leadership have reasons to divert attention from domestic affairs to this conflict. It does have a genuine solid military motive, but the timing may very well be politically motivated.

* It isn't clear that President Trump had the legal authority to strike Iran in support of Israel without Congressional authorization which was not sought or obtained. This strike is not within the scope of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), or any of the authorizations made in connection with the Iraq War.

* The MAGA right is divided on the desirability of this strike and it isn't clear that Trump could have promptly secured backing from Congress to make the strike if he'd asked it to do so.

* While a military strike directly on Iran from the U.S. no doubt does increase the likelihood of retaliation on the U.S. from Iran, the notion that we should be suspicious of Iranian-Americans, many of whom are medical professionals working in rural America, is very doubtful. There are probably not lots of Iranian "sleeper cells" in the U.S. who want to commit terrorist acts in the U.S.

* Political protests against Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is long standing on the American left, and has legitimate justification, particularly given an Israeli military response in Gaza to the October 7 attacks that, while understandable, particularly because Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages and refused to surrender, has been overkill. Notably, however, the October 7 attacks had widespread support in Gaza long after the blowback it suffered from them became clear. The U.S. opposition to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is predominantly not anti-Semitic, and isn't even predominantly anti-Zionist. It is mostly a very general pro-human rights driven movement.

* The Israeli response to October 7 in Gaza has been so completely destroyed that the enclave that it can support only perhaps a third or a half as many people as it had before the attacks (see also here). While there have been tens of thousands of Gazan deaths so far there, the clock is ticking and there will soon be either many hundreds of thousands to millions of Gazan deaths from starvation, lack of water, and illness, or a mass exile of people who are currently in Gaza, which no Islamic countries are volunteering to sponsor.

Juneteenth

Juneteenth, celebrated today on June 19, is now a federal, state, and local holiday.

It memorializes the several days in 1865 when many slaves in the Confederacy were made aware from Union forces that they had been freed by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Until then, that proclamation had been largely an empty promise.

This was a monumental and profoundly life changing event for almost every slave who received the news. But it is a complex memory, because it was also only one huge and critical step in the very long process that still isn't complete. It was an absolutely necessary step, but it wasn't a sufficient one to chance society enough to do justice to those who heard it by itself.

Reparations, in the popular imagination, forty acres and a mule, never materialized. Reconstruction was short lived, and was followed by about ninety years of lynchings, discrimination, and Jim Crow. Many freed slaves continued to do work similar to what they had done while they were slaves, but while migrating from one plantation to another as they saw fit, rather than being bound to a master. Their economic well being improved, but more incrementally than dramatically. Their path to education and business ownership and gaining the skills to be competitive in the economy was winding with one step back for every two steps forward.

A parity of legal rights on paper finally started to be achieved in the 1950s and 1960s, but it took decades longer for even those legal rights to be anywhere close to being fully realized. And, even then, having legal rights, and being able to use them in a way the secured the descendants of the freed slaves who heard the news in the Juneteenth days of 1865 something approaching parity in social and economic well being has taken longer than that. In 2024, we still aren't all of the way to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s promised land.

So, Juneteenth is an important day, but was not a moment of a singular victory whose benefits were reaped right away. It was a beginning and we haven't made it to the end yet.

Hamas, The Houthis, Hezbollah, Iran, And ISIS-K

Hamas and the Houthis have provoked the responses that they predictably received with wide popular support for their actions.

The decision of Hamas to conduct the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel still had strong majority support among Gazans months after the attack when the devastating consequences of that decision were clear. 

Likewise, the Houthi attacks on shipping and U.S. warships in the Red Sea are a boost to Houthi political support and legitimacy in the parts of Southern Yemen which it controls that is home to 70% of the population of Yemen, despite the fact that the insurgency it has waged there has led to a catastrophic humanitarian disaster there.

Every bit of Israeli and Western military response in Gaza and against the Houthis was deliberately provoked and had broad popular support. In both places, large majorities actively wanted to inflict harm on the U.S. and to obliterate Israel entirely. And, Gaza also continues to keep 100 or so Israeli hostages and has done nothing to surrender.

So, in both cases, while there is clearly significant suffering and plenty of people in each place, like children did nothing to deserve it, neither population is very sympathetic. Each of them brought what they are experiencing upon themselves through deliberate provocation and evil conduct. 

Iran's Role

Of course, Iran is to blame too, for giving them firepower and intelligence that they otherwise would have lacked, and for egging them on behind the scenes. Iran has played a similar role in providing capabilities for and egging on Hezbollah which has waged war on Israel for Lebanon for decades, and Shiite Islamic militias in Iraq and Syria.

Iran's role in world affairs is complicated. 

The war in Yemen is a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia to a great extent, yet the two countries recently reached a Chinese brokered peace accord. China is also looking to strengthen its ties to the Houthis as a way to exempt its own merchants from Houthi piracy. China has previously joined naval coalitions against Somalian pirates in the same region. On the other hand, China is lukewarm toward Russia since it can't alienate its Western trading partners too badly, and has pulled back a majority of of expatriates and economic investments in Africa in the last five years or so, after having spent years trying to build economic and political influence in Africa and across the second and third worlds.

Iran is a key military supplier and source of military technology for both Russia and North Korea as a result of the military industrial capabilities it was forced to develop for itself after decades of Western sanctions. It probably has a few nuclear weapons, has proven it has long range missile capabilities, and its naval might in the Persian Gulf is rivaled upon plausible U.S. naval adversaries only by Russia, China, and North Korea. Iran has also not refrained from using its military capabilities on occasion and has designs on making Shiite majority Iraq into one of its client states.

Yet, Iran reached a treaty, from which Trump promptly withdrew, with the U.S. during President Obama's administration. Its democracy, while flawed and subject to a theoretic veto, is more of a real democracy than most of the Middle East and West Asia. While Iran presented itself to the world as a Shiite theocracy, it actually have considerable religious diversity and is almost as far along the path towards secularism as places like the U.S. and Ireland in terms of grass roots belief, even though the waning religious conservatives have the upper hand in terms of political power. Iran would be a natural place for an Islamic analog to the modernizing Protestant Reformation in Europe to emerge under the right circumstances. Iran has oil wealth, but unlike many other reasonably developed Islamic countries, also has a substantial commercial and manufacturing sector, leaving it in circumstances that have more in common with Turkey and Egypt, than with Saudi Arabia and UAE and Brunei which are dominated by oil wealth, or Yemen and Afghanistan which have little more than subsistence farming interrupted by long periods of civil war.

Israel's Overkill

Israel's response in Gaza has probably been overkill although it is also completely understandable. Hamas and kindred Islamist movements in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the Middle East have been trying to exterminate Israel and to wipe Jews from the face of the Earth almost since its inception in 1948. When Israel gave Gaza more autonomy and withdrew from direct supervision of the region, the Palestinians put Hamas in charge and Israel got terrorist bombings, endless rocket attacks, and the October 7 massacre in return.

President Biden treads the difficult path of not adding aid and comfort to those who would destroy Israel, while simultaneously trying to mitigate humanitarian suffering in Gaza. And, contrary to the views of many on the left, Israel is not just an American puppet that is compelled to do the bidding of an American President in response to an existential threat to it and its people.

About ISIS-K

As an aside, the terrorist attacked recently carried out at a concert in Moscow that killed about 144 people and seriously injured at least 100 more was the work of four Tajik terrorists affiliated with ISIS-K. ISIS-K is one of the main opponents of the Taliban in Afghanistan, although they obviously have no problem with the idea of an Islamist theocracy. 

ISIS-K stands for Islamic State - Khorasan, a reference to the 7th and 8th century CE kingdom in what is now Islamic Central Asia that included "western Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, the eastern halves of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, and portions of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan." The region was first united under the pre-Islamic Sasanian Persian empire, and then became part of the first two Sunni Islamic Caliphates:

First established in the 6th century as one of four administrative (military) divisions by the Sasanian Empire, the scope of the region has varied considerably during its nearly 1,500-year history. Initially, the Khorasan division of the Sasanian Empire covered the northeastern military gains of the empire. . . .With the rise of the Umayyad Caliphate, the designation was inherited and likewise stretched as far as their military gains in the east, starting off with the military installations at Nishapur and Merv, slowly expanding eastwards into Tokharistan and Sogdia. Under the Caliphs, Khorasan was the name of one of the three political zones under their dominion (the other two being Eraq-e Arab "Arabic Iraq" and Eraq-e Ajam "Non-Arabic Iraq or Persian Iraq"). Under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, Khorasan was divided into four major sections or quarters (rub′), each section based on a single major city: Nishapur, Merv, Herat and Balkh.

The Abbasid Caliphate gots its start in Khorasan around 750 CE, was a high water mark of the Islamic empire in a golden age which lasted more than five centuries until 1258 CE, and persisted in some form for more than two and a half centuries after that, until the 1517 CE when the Ottoman Empire replaced them. The Ottomans, in turn, were the most powerful Islamic country in the world and expanded well into the Balkans, for centuries, but then faded in a long, slow decline, until it fell, roughly the end of World War I, when the current politics of the Middle East began when the colonial powers that won in World War I drew the boundaries of the modern Middle Eastern states and picked the rulers for those countries.

The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (/əˈbæsɪd/ or /ˈæbəsɪd/; Arabic: الْخِلَافَة الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, romanized: al-Khilāfa al-ʿAbbāsiyya) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name. They ruled as caliphs for most of the caliphate from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after having overthrown the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE (132 AH). The Abbasid Revolution had its origins and first successes in the easterly region of Khorasan, far from the bases of Umayyad power in Syria and Iraq. The Abbasid Caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, near the ancient Babylonian capital city of Babylon and Persian city of Ctesiphon. Baghdad became the center of science, culture, and invention in what became known as the Golden Age of Islam. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multiethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it an international reputation as the "Centre of Learning".

The Abbasid period was marked by dependence on Persian bureaucrats (such as the Barmakid family) for governing the territories as well as an increasing inclusion of non-Arab Muslims in the ummah (Muslim community). Persian customs were broadly adopted by the ruling elite, and they began patronage of artists and scholars. Since much support for the Abbasids came from Persian converts, it was natural for the Abbasids to take over much of the Persian tradition of government. Despite this initial cooperation, the Abbasids of the late 8th century had alienated both non-Arab mawali (clients) and Persian bureaucrats.

The political power of the caliphs was limited with the rise of the Iranian Buyids and the Seljuq Turks, who captured Baghdad in 945 and 1055, respectively. Although Abbasid leadership over the vast Islamic empire was gradually reduced to a ceremonial religious function in much of the caliphate, the dynasty retained control of its Mesopotamian domain during the rule of Caliph al-Muqtafi and extended into Iran during the reign of Caliph al-Nasir. The Abbasids' age of cultural revival and fruition ended in 1258 with the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols under Hulagu Khan and the execution of al-Musta'sim. The Abbasid line of rulers, and Muslim culture in general, re-centred themselves in the Mamluk capital of Cairo in 1261. Though lacking in political power (with the brief exception of Caliph al-Musta'in of Cairo), the dynasty continued to claim religious authority until a few years after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, with the last Abbasid caliph being Al-Mutawakkil III.

And, as an aside, who were the Sasanians? 

The Sasanian Empire or Sassanid Empire, also known as the Second Persian Empire or Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th to 8th centuries. Named after the House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651, making it the second longest-lived Persian imperial dynasty after the Arsacids of the Parthian Empire.

Worker Safety In Qatar Is Poor

Basic Facts About Qatar

Qatar is shown in green. 

As the Huffington Post which is my source for the map and pronunciation of the country's name explains:

Qatar is a small Middle Eastern peninsula in the Persian Gulf bordered by Saudi Arabia. It has been ruled by the Al-Thani family since the mid-1800s, according to the CIA World Factbook, and has a population of about 840,000 people. It is slightly smaller than Connecticut. This tiny nation holds the world's third largest oil reserves, and oil and natural gas account for over 50 percent of the GDP.

Qatar is pronounced so that it sounds roughly like "cutter" and is one of the only words in which the letter Q appears without being followed by the letter "u" in its English spelling.

According to Wikipedia:

Qatar has been ruled as a hereditary monarchy by the House of Thani since Mohammed bin Thani signed a treaty with the British in 1868 that recognised its separate status. Following Ottoman rule, Qatar became a British protectorate in the early 20th century until gaining independence in 1971. The current emir is Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who holds nearly all executive and legislative authority under the Constitution of Qatar, as well as controlling the judiciary. He appoints the prime minister and cabinet. The partially-elected Consultative Assembly can block legislation and has a limited ability to dismiss ministers.

In early 2017, Qatar's total population was 2.6 million, with 313,000 of them Qatari citizens and 2.3 million expatriates. Its official religion is Islam. In terms of income, the country has the fourth-highest GDP (PPP) per capita in the world, and the eleventh-highest GNI per capita (Atlas method). Qatar ranks 42nd in the Human Development Index, the third-highest HDI in the Arab world. It is a high-income economy, backed by the world's third-largest natural gas reserves and oil reserves. Qatar is one of the world's largest exporters of liquefied natural gas, and the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide per capita.

Qatar In The Spotlight

Qatar is currently hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup (the global championship for professional soccer, the world's leading sport) which has turned the spotlight on the country, not necessarily in a positive way. 

Qatar has received attention for its restrictions on beer consumption in a country where alcohol consumption is mostly banned due to Islamic prohibitions on consuming it, the hostility of the venue to LGBT associated symbols since hostility towards gays attributed to Islam is the norm there, its treatment of women justified by Islam, and its weak protections for human rights (particularly for migrant workers who make up 90% of the workforce) and its lack of democracy. 

I say "attributed to" and "justified by" because many of the "Islamic practices" of countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia are not universal in predominantly Islamic countries and are justified with Islamic religious authorities in ways that do not compel the conclusions that these communities reach about what Islamic law requires according to many Muslims and Muslim religious scholars. 

Worker Safety In Qatar 

The issue addressed in this post, however, worker safety, is an issue with regard to which Islamic and Western norms, secular and religious alike, are not meaningfully in disagreement. The Qataris, like almost everyone else in the world, would prefer that there are no workplace fatalities.

World Cup chief Hassan Al-Thawadi said that between 400 and 500 migrant workers have died as a result of work done on projects connected to the tournament [since Qatar was selected to host this year's World Cup in 2010].

In an interview with Piers Morgan which aired on TalkTV on Monday, Al-Thawadi was asked about the number of fatalities to migrant workers as a result of the work done in the tournament and said: “The estimate is around 400, between 400 and 500.

“I don’t have the exact number, that’s something that’s been discussed. One death is too many, it’s as simple as that.”

From CNN.

* Fatal Occupational Injuries in U.S. in 2019: 5,333

World Almanac 2022 citing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

* U.S. Population in 2019: 328.3 million

Google

* Fatal Occupational Injuries per year in U.S. per million people: 16.2

* Per Capita GDP in U.S.: $63,554

World Almanac 2022

* Average Annual Migrant Worker Fatal Deaths in Qatar: 650

2010-2019 for South Asian migrant workers only per CNN citing the Guardian

* Percentage of workforce made up of migrant workers in Qatar: 90%

CNN citing Amnesty International

* Qatar Population in 2019: 2.832 million

Google

* Fatal Migrant Worker deaths per year in Qatar per million people: 229.5

* Adjusted Qatar rate since migrant workers are 90% of the workforce: 255

* Per capita GDP in Qatar: $89,949

World Almanac 2022

Migrant workers in Qatar, who make up 90% of the workforce there, are about 15 times as likely as U.S. workers to die on the job in any given year.

The workplace death rate in Qatar is roughly what it was in the United States in 1913, before there was any significant governmental regulation of workplace safety in the United States.

In 1913, the Bureau of Labor Statistics documented approximately 23,000 industrial deaths among a workforce of 38 million, equivalent to a rate of 61 deaths per 100,000 workers. Under a different reporting system, data from the National Safety Council from 1933 through 1997 indicate that deaths from unintentional work-related injuries declined 90%, from 37 per 100,000 workers to 4 per 100,000. The corresponding annual number of deaths decreased from 14,500 to 5100; during this same period, the workforce more than tripled, from 39 million to approximately 130 million.

From the U.S. Center For Disease Control citing National Safety Council. Accident facts, 1998 edition. Itasca, Illinois: National Safety Council, 1998 and Corn JK. Response to occupational health hazards: a historical perspective. New York, New York: Nostrand Reinhold, 1992.

Which Countries Are Considered More Evil Than They Are, Or Less So?

In this context, evil refers to disregard for human rights, disregard for their own citizens' well being, authoritarianism, global scale environmental harm,  and aggressiveness in international affairs. This list is (not yet) comprehensive.

Countries that are less evil than conventional wisdom:

1. Cuba

2. Iran

3. Nicaragua

Countries that are more evil the conventional wisdom:

1. Saudi Arabia

2. United Arab Emirates

3. Hungary

4. Kuwait

Evil leaning countries correctly rated for evilness in conventional wisdom:

1. North Korea

2. Russia

3. Syria

4. Afghanistan

5. Myanmar

6. Venezuela

Some cases are particularly difficult to evaluate, and are hard to assign a single "evil index", because they are pretty good in some dimensions, and pretty bad in others. These countries include:

1. China

2. Israel

3. United States

4. Turkey

Countries that were historically quite evil, and are in a transitional period whose ultimate outlook is unclear:

1. Uzbekistan

2. Sudan

3. Somalia

4. Libya

5. Albania

Countries that aren't so much evil as in disarray:

1. Haiti

2. Honduras 

3. El Salvador

4. Belize

5. Guatemala

6. Botswana

Countries with active wars or active insurgencies in their territory (some are also on other lists)

1. Ethiopia

2. Yemen

3. Nigeria

4. Mali

5. Somalia 

6. Syria 

7. Myanmar

8. Israel

9. Phillipines

Boycotts And Such

Most of the time, I make decisions on what to buy from various choices available for something that I need based upon factors intrinsic to the purchase. What is the price? What is the quality of the good or service provided?

Sometimes, however, I consider additional factors that go beyond the intrinsic nature of the transaction. At one extreme, I may decline to do business with a firm entirely as part of a boycott of that firm for some reason related to the conduct or affiliations of the firm itself that don't necessarily relate to the quality of the good or service that it provides. At another extreme, I may chose to do business with a firm despite unfavorable intrinsic elements of the transaction, such as a higher price or more inconvenient delivery option, because I have a positive opinion of the firm providing it. In less extreme cases, these firm related factors may influence my purchasing decision but don't entirely dictate it.

Of course, there are firms that I have an opinion about that I don't meaningfully boycott or favor because I simply don't have any intrinsic reason to buy their products. Whether I feel good or bad about Boeing or Airbus, I simply don't have any good reason to buy or lease commercial or military aircraft.

Also, parallel to this notion is that some purchases have an intrinsically cultural element that is pertinent to a purchase at the primary level. 

For example, I am more likely to purchase Kimchee, rather than sauerkraut, because culturally Korean foods are part of my family culture to a much greater extent than culturally German foods. 

Boycotts Often Don't Work

Further, I am well aware that boycotts and economic sanctions designed to isolate countries or firms are only rarely effective, and sometimes backfire, although there have been notable exceptions. 

Internationally, the current sanctions against Russia and Belarus, and historically, sanctions against South Africa, are rare examples of cases where sanctions have been quite effective. 

Sometimes sanctions have unintended consequences. Sanctions against Turkey, related to its presence in Cyprus, sanctions by many countries against Israel, sanctions against Iran, and sanctions against South Africa, were all important in giving rise to thriving local defense contractor industries. Sanctions can encourage countries to become allies with your enemies or competitors too.

Grass roots consumer boycotts against firms for their undesirable conduct are often even less effective. For example, Coors, Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, Wells Fargo, and Amazon.com are all apparently doing well enough, despite long standing consumer boycott efforts at one level or another. It is hard to quantify what impact these boycott efforts have had. A boycott effort has to be particularly widespread to be effective.

Action in the civic arena can sometimes be more effective. For example, the Boy Scouts, the Roman Catholic Church, and the NRA were all hurt badly by firm level concerns and scandals not closely related to their core missions. Firm level virtue matters more in the civic and non-profit area where firm level virtue is part of the decision to be involved with the organization.

My Own Case By Case Views

The list of factors I consider and matters upon which I am influenced by firm level conduct are modest, and each carries with it a story.

I don't cross picket lines by doing business with, or buying good made by firms where workers are on strike, ever, while the strike is in progress. Mostly this is a firm level consideration, although it also reflects the fact that the quality of the consumer experience is usually reduced in a scab staffed firm and this creates doubts about whether quality control measures are being followed.

I don't patronize Chick-fil-A, a fast food chicken restaurant chain, because of their anti-LGBT advocacy and to a lesser extent by their Republican political advocacy and campaign contributions.

I don't patronize Hobby Lobby, a big box craft supply store, because of their conservative Christian agenda, especially as applied to reproductive rights for their employees.

I don't drink Coors beer, in part,  due to their anti-union labor practices, but also because, intrinsically, their marquee beer is crappy quality beer.

While I am sympathetic to recent boycotts of Russian vodka in light of Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine, in truth, I haven't bought Russian vodka in decades for the intrinsic reasons that French, Swedish, Finnish and Icelandic vodka is a better product, and because I have ethnic affinities to Sweden and Finland which a positive firm level reasons to buy those products.

I firmly reject buying on a "locavore" basis, as I feel strongly about the importance of international trade in food goods and don't believe that any virtues are served by buying local food stuff. Similarly, in most circumstances, I don't care if food is organic, which can be good for the environment but rarely actually makes food healthier, and I am not worried about GMO foods.

I certainly do not oppose "corporate" or "factory" farms relative to "small family farms" which are vastly less efficient and often have worse quality control and issues with how they treat migrant workers that they often have to employ on a seasonal basis.

On one hand, farm raised fish can be prone to accumulation of toxins, on the other, "wild caught" fishing is depleting world fisheries and shellfish and top of the food chain predator fish like tuna are still prone to accumulations of heavy metals and contribute to threats to aquatic species like dolphins that everyone loves. So, I'm fairly ambivalent about that distinction.

I have historically been willing to pay extra in my utility bill to subsidize wind generated power in lieu of coal fired power generation, but I'm not very concerned about nuclear power or natural gas generated power. As life has gotten busier, my wife now handles our utility bills, so I'm not involved in those decisions.

I have firm level reasons to favor CostCo, which pays its workers well and does not support bad causes, over Walmart and Sam's Club, which are anti-union and treat their worker's poorly and are owned by major GOP donors. But my preferences between the two aren't terribly strong, and intrinsic reasons related to the quality of the goods sold at CostCo and other grocery stores relative to Walmart and Sam's Club, and related to the shopping experience, also factor into this preference.

I have a slight preference for shopping at Tattered Cover Book store, a local small business, over Barnes and Nobel, a national corporate chain competitor, but not a big one (and Barnes and Nobel, other than being a big national corporate chain, isn't particular despicable).

I avoid Wells Fargo Bank, NA, because of its history of bad banking practices, but also intrinsically, because I've seen first hand the way it has mishandled business transactions and mistreated customers.

I have a strong preference against things associated with Texas and with being in Texas. I once declined to pursue a good paying job at a large Texas law firm, in an area where I had the relevant skills, where I was being recruited by a headhunter to work, because I didn't want to live in Texas or raise a family there. I wouldn't consider a vacation for pleasure there either. Texas is notorious for outrageous injustice in its criminal justice system, for racism, for a violent gun oriented culture, for anti-abortion and anti-LGBT political activism, and more. This preference isn't absolute, however, and I did once attend an academic conference for legal scholars there to present an academic paper. Similarly, despite the branding, I'm not adverse to patronizing Texas Roadhouse restaurants, a large chain of mid-tier steak houses, because the connection to Texas itself is so attenuated. And, I am similarly

Many people on the left seek to boycott Israel because of its unjust treatment of its Palestinian population, and to a lesser extent, due to its discrimination against Arabs. I'm aware of those issues. I don't support those policies and actions and favor diplomatic action and legal action to curtail that conduct. But I am also aware that Israel has provided a safe haven from anti-semitism for Jews around the world and that Israel's neighbors have threatened genocidal warfare against it that would result in the extermination of about half of the world's Jews, most of the rest of whom live in the U.S. Also, Israel has done plenty of very positive things and has an overall society whose level of civic development and respect for women's rights and for other worthy things is exemplary within the Middle East and North Africa. So, overall, my attitude to Israel in a boycott or preference analysis is ambivalent.

Similarly, I am aware that the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel, which is a low end sit down restaurant chain that sells Southern regional food, has faced serious racial discrimination in employment charges with it paid handsomely to settle, but it is also one of the few places where many foods of my childhood in Georgia are easily available in a reasonably authentic format. And, Cracker Barrel has not been particularly prominent in taking stances that appeal to the worst prejudices of a majority of its customer base. So, I am ambivalent towards it.

Some people are not a fan of Amazon.com, because it is a giant national corporation owned by billionaires that has put many small businesses, including book stores, out of business, because it charges very high fees to smaller firms that sell goods through it depriving those firms of profits that they would earn if you bought goods directly from them, and because it tends to exploit its warehouse workers. But the intrinsic benefits to doing business with Amazon are considerable. It has a good quality user interface. I get credit card points for purchases there at very favorable rates that I use for things I want. I can find things that I want to buy there that are hard to locate elsewhere. They deliver their goods promptly and frequently more reliably with in house delivery vans than the U.S. Postal Service or United Parcel Service do. Returning goods from Amazon is trouble free and can be done in person at nearby Whole Foods locations (which it recently acquired). The retail level prices are competitive with in person retail. The Amazon Prime video offerings and Kindle ebook offerings are reasonably priced (or free with an annual or monthly subscription in some cases) and are good quality. It is good at recommending things that I might want to buy in the future. It makes it easy to pre-order soon to be released books and get them on their release dates. Their reviews are helpful in evaluating purchases and reasonably trustworthy. I don't worry about it engaged in e-commerce fraud that can be a concern with very small firms. Home delivery is often convenient when I'm overwhelmed with work and have little time for trips outside the grocery store. So, while I sometime look for opportunities to buy direct from small firms affiliated with Amazon, mostly I don't avoid it as some people do.

While I recognize the economic and social benefits in some cases of supporting locally owned and small businesses, I'm not terribly dogmatic or moved by those concerns unless I know the owners personally (and I do buy books that I wouldn't otherwise buy when they are written by people I know). 

Similarly, while many people are upset at Spotify, justifiably, for its sweet deal with an anti-vaxx podcaster, this platform is so vastly superior to any other music streaming platform, and has also provided a way for my own son to distribute music he produces to a larger audience in what amounts to self-publishing with the polish of big time artists, so I haven't backed away from supporting it.

I'm aware of concerns about Goodwill, the thrift store and semi-charitably oriented business, but not particularly concerned about the income of the CEO or its business model of making profits by receiving inventory for free, paying marginal workers minimum wage with few if any benefits, and selling used good cheap.

I do not favor the very old U.S. boycott of Cuba. Cuba does engage in certain human rights violations. But it is also, in many respects, one of the most admirable Communist regimes in terms of how it has handled public health measures, for example, and its human rights violations do not rise to the level of extreme totalitarian regimes. It certainly has a better human rights record than countries such as Saudi Arabia and China, which the U.S. has not embargoed. The sanctions have also not proven effective and greater rather than less engagement would probably be a better way to promote positive change there.

When Is Military AI O.K.?

Setting up active defense systems that respond to incoming ordinance and missiles and snipers faster than a human being could for the military isn't very troubling.

Letting Artificial Intelligence systems select targets outside these exigent kinds of situation, as some tech companies are proposing, is potentially more troublesome, at least unless there is reliable and responsible human involvement in the loop. But, on the other hand, having AI second guess and flag for review potentially problematic targets selected by humans, could be a good idea.

Astronomers Consider ET Impact Driven Immigration

What should we do if a predicted asteroid impact that we can predict, which is big enough to cause regional damage, but not big enough to end the species, makes it necessary to evacuate hundreds of thousand or millions of people from their homes, perhaps permanently?

I'm skeptical that we as a global human race could listen to scientists and behave in a civil way, but one can hope.

Throughout recorded history, humans have crossed national borders to seek safety in nearby countries. The reasons for displacement have been generated by phenomena of terrestrial origin, but exposure to unexpected extra-terrestrial threats poses a different scenario. An asteroid impact warning implies a change of paradigm which would represent a historic precedent. 

In this regard, the analogies with natural disasters must be considered, along with multiple possible scenarios, and legal aspects related to a) the legal framework to regulate this situation; b) the action and responsibility of the states; and c) the definition of impact refugee and the reconfiguration of traditional concepts such as deterritorialized states. 

In addition, the decision-making process and the actors involved must be led by a cooperative effort to improve international law. These new circumstances should be established with a consideration of inequalities between the states, and an aim of protecting humanity through democratic solutions using the safest, most effective techniques.

Elisa Simó-Soler, Eloy Peña-Asensio, "From impact refugees to deterritorialized states: foresighting extreme legal-policy cases in asteroid impact scenarios" arXiv:2111.13643 (November 5, 2021) (Acta Astronautica (in revision)).

Some Reforms To Address Abuses By Law Enforcement And Corrections Officers (With Meta Note)

Some of these are bigger, and some smaller, they aren't necessarily all mutually consistent.

Hold Institutions Responsible

Institutions will make better personnel decisions and adopt better policies if they have liability for wrongdoing.

* Adapt the "takings" jurisprudence to wrongful deprivations of life and liberty by a government or someone acting on its behalf, without regard to intent or knowledge. Thus, the entity whose collective actions and inactions by its employees and agents caused someone to be wrongfully deprived of their rights to life and liberty would be entitled to full compensatory damages and attorneys' fees without regard to the intent of the person doing so or their good faith. 

For example, suppose an innocent person is incarcerated despite a full trial in which there a no constitutional rights violated. The innocent person is still entitled to full compensatory damages and attorneys' fees. Similarly, an innocent person shot and killed due to a good faith mistake of law enforcement is still entitled to full compensatory damages and attorneys' fees. Similarly, if an innocent person's property is damaged by law enforcement to apprehend someone, the individual suffering the harm is entitled to compensation.

Of course, this would still not allow compensation for justifiable use of force from the person whose actions justified the use of force.

* Make governments vicariously liable under the doctrine of respondiat superior for the civil rights violations of their agents and employees. This is true of all other kinds of torts. In practice, almost all governments indemnify their agents and employees fully even though they are not required to, in these contexts, so it wouldn't have a big fiscal impact. 

Possibly allow governments an affirmative defense to vicariously liability if they immediately suspend an officer, fire them before allowing them to return to duty, and prosecute any crime committed which the government alleges makes the action ultra vires.

Holding Individual Civil Rights Violators Responsible

* Repeal the relatively recent, court created doctrine of qualified immunity.

* Reduce the threshold of intent for personal liability for civil rights violations from intentional conduct to at least negligent conduct. For example, civil rights liability should be imposed if a law enforcement officer failed to use ordinary care to avoid raiding a wrong address, or arresting the wrong defendant.

* Clarify the lack of absolute immunity for prosecutors in connection with investigative roles. Some case law makes this distinction but it is buried in contested case law.

* Narrow justifications for the use of deadly force by law enforcement, and the justifications and processes for use of situations posing an elevated risk of  use of deadly force or abuse such as "no knock" raids.

* Do not allow employers to indemnify individuals for amounts that they are required to pay, routinely bring subrogation claims against civil rights violators. Do not allow the right to subrogation to be waived absent a court approved ex post hearing to show that the settlement with the civil rights violator is justified. Do not allow indemnification and subrogation terms to be tie barred in settlements to the merits.

* Make public pensions available an an asset available to civil right creditors and to governments or their insurers bringing subrogation claims against civil right violators.

Make Circumstances Constituting Sexual Abuse Easier To Prove

* Make it a felony for a law enforcement or corrections officer to have sexual interactions with someone in custody, or someone subject to the officer's jurisdiction with whom the officer does not have an existing relationship while not in custody.

* Prohibit mixed gender cavity searches.

* Narrow the circumstances in which strip searches and cavity searchers are allowed.

Reduce Booking And Arrest And Pre-Trial Incarceration

* Prohibit booking and jail (including related strip searches) for offenses that don't carry incarceration is an ultimate penalty.

* Eliminate incarceration or arrest as an option for most municipal ordinance violations and non-violent petty offenses and misdemeanors.

* Create a civil remedy of removal of someone from a situation that is not a crime, e.g. to defuse a situation, that is not reported as an arrest.

* Compensate people not timely convicted for time incarcerated and for attorneys' fees incurred if not represented by a public defender (or some amount in lieu of actual compensation to be a rough justice approximation) as a matter of course.

* Dramatically curtail the use of cash bonds with the vast majority of cases resulting in pre-trial release on personal recognizance with check in measures, or with pre-trial detention without bond.

* Mandate significantly better conditions in pre-trial detention than detention pursuant to a conviction.

* Make screening and treatment for drug withdrawal routine and mandatory for incarcerated persons.

* Do not incarcerate pregnant people in ordinary jails and prisons. Unless absolutely necessary, defer a sentence of incarceration until after birth and nursing, and when absolutely necessary do so in special medical units and do not require women to undergo labor and delivery in chains.

* Don't put law enforcement officers in schools.

* Don't resort to the criminal justice system for misconduct by children outside extremely limited circumstances set by policies known to school officials and law enforcement.

Get "Bad Apples" Out Of Law Enforcement

* Require law enforcement to have "at will" employment even if unionized or otherwise subject to civil servant protections.

* Authorize the finder of fact (jury or judge as they case may be) to remove a civil rights violator from his or her employment and bar him or her from future positions in law enforcement.

* Develop a national black list of people who have been found liable for serious civil rights violations from serving in future law enforcement positions.

* Develop a national database, a bit like a credit report, of instances in which a court or investigation has found a law enforcement officer to be untruthful. Require it to be shared as part of Brady disclosures in every case in which a law enforcement officer testifies.

* Develop a national database on complaints filed against law enforcement officers and their disposition.

* Disqualify officers with prior domestic violence, other violent crime, animal cruelty, fraud, or public trust crime or ethics code violations or protection orders or courts martial offenses from serving for the next ten years after the sentence is complete.

* Mandatory notification of legal ethics boards for Brady violations by prosecutors (i.e. failures to disclose exonerating evidence to the defense), following findings in court cases.

* Mandatory notification of law enforcement registry following findings if court cases that an arrest or search or seizure was made without probable cause.

* Routinely investigate officers and agencies with a history of complaints and violations. Create an option to place an agency under receivership when its violations cross a threshold.

* Routinely bring federal prosecutions for civil rights violations when unduly lenient local sentences are imposed or there are local acquittals in the face of compelling video, physical, DNA, confession, or other compelling evidence.

* Actively discipline prosecutors and judges for ethical violations showing disregard for civil rights.

Processes

* Vest prosecutions of law enforcement officers in an agency that does not work with and rely on the cooperation of law enforcement officers in the same unit on a daily basis, ideally an independent state agency co-managed with the public defenders office with its own investigators that is also charged with ethics investigations.

* Allow judges and prosecutors (who otherwise have absolute immunity from liability for their conduct) to have civil liability in any matter where the judge or prosecutor is found by an ethical body or criminal prosecution to have committed an ethical violation or crime, with the statute of limitations running from notice to the affecting person that the finding was made in the ethical or criminal case.

* Remand cases that are reversed on appeal to a new judge as a matter of course in all cases.

* Reduce sentences and overturn final convictions as a matter of course when new substantive statute or court rulings invalidate the sentence imposed as a possible sentence.

* Repeal many of the detailed statutory limitations on habeas corpus relief.

Meta Note

This is post 8100 at Wash Park Prophet. I have made 9914 posts at Wash Park Prophet and its sister blog Dispatches From Turtle Island, combined. There are also 34 posts at my incomplete serial novel blog, Wash Park Poet, for a grand total of 9952 posts on the blogger platform.

This blog is the original one and started on July 3, 2005, not quite fifteen years ago, so I have posted, on average, a little less than 13 posts a week for the last fifteen years.

Change, Some For The Better In Saudi Arabia

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has made some reforms that restrict practices that are widely recognized as putting Saudi Arabia among the "uncivilized" countries of the world (he has also relaxed some restrictions on women's rights and expanded democracy at the local government level while retaining an absolute monarchy nationally). But, he's also taken actions that belong in a modern version of the television series "Game of Thrones."

Even with the reforms, Saudi Arabia will still have one of the highest rates of capital and corporal punishment in the world, still criminalizes conduct that is legal in most of the world, and remains one of the most totalitarian countries in the world. But, steps in the right direction are still welcome ones.

It remains to be seen if his policies, reforms and tactics, will be, on balance, positive or negative ones.

"Saudi Arabia's King Salman has ordered an end to the death penalty for crimes committed by minors, according to a statement Sunday by a top official. The decision comes on the heels of another ordering judges to end the practice of flogging, replacing it with jail time, fines or community service and bringing one of the kingdom’s most controversial forms of public punishment to a close. 

King Salman's son and heir, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is seen as the force behind the kingdom’s loosening of restrictions and its pivot away from ultraconservative interpretations of Islamic law known as Wahhabism, which many in the country still closely adhere to. 

The crown prince has sought to modernize the country, attract foreign investment and revamp Saudi Arabia’s reputation globally. He's also overseen a parallel crackdown on liberals, women's rights activists, writers, moderate clerics and reformers. The 2018 killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey by agents who worked for the crown prince drew sharp criticism internationally. 

The latest royal decree by King Salman could spare the death penalty for at least six men from the country’s minority Shiite community who allegedly committed crimes while under the age of 18, including Ali al-Nimr, who had participated in anti-government protests. Such activity carries terrorism-related charges in the kingdom for disturbing order and disobeying the ruler. In a document seen by The Associated Press, the royal decree orders prosecutors to review cases and drop punishments for those who've already served the maximum 10 years. However, the decree states that terrorism-related cases of minors will be tried differently. . . . 

He said “more reforms will be coming,” and that the two decisions “reflect how Saudi Arabia is forging ahead in its realization of critical human rights reforms even amid the hardship imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic." The decree expands on a previous order by King Salman issued in late 2018, which set a maximum 10-year prison term for minors in certain cases, except for crimes punishable by death. Now the 10-year maximum applies to all crimes by minors, with the possible exception of terrorism-related crimes. . . . 

Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court recently issued a directive to end flogging as a form of punishment sometime in April, according to another document seen by The Associated Press. The public spectacle of whipping a handcuffed prisoner for often non-violent crimes had drawn some comparisons to the types of punishment carried out by extremist groups like the Islamic State. . . . The Supreme Court document said the decision was in line with the kingdom's reforms and developments in the realm of human rights as directed by King Salman and overseen by the crown prince. .. . 

While some crimes, such as murder, may carry fixed punishments under Saudi Arabia’s interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, many other offenses are considered “tazir," meaning neither the crime nor the punishment is defined in Islam. Discretionary judgments for “tazir” crimes, such as flogging, have led to arbitrary rulings with contentious outcomes. Muslim countries generally do not practice public flogging. “This is a good step but we are still waiting to see if existing lashing sentences will be reversed and expunged,” al-Ahmed said."

From ABC News.