Pushed Face to the Ground, Abderrahim Fakir Couldn’t BreatheAnger stirred in Italy this past week after forty-two-year-old Abderrahim Fakir was killed while under police restraint during a routine check in Bologna. On Sunday, Fakir’s neighbors had called emergency number 118 after hearing screams, and police arrived first on the scene. Video footage shows two officers grabbing the man and holding him face down on the street for several minutes, applying pressure on his back after pepper-spraying him while he was already face to the ground, his ankles bound. When paramedics arrived, they stood watching as Fakir cried “help, stop.” He then stopped talking and moving, before being pronounced dead at the scene. A later preliminary exam showed lung compression was a possible cause of death. Fakir was a Moroccan national, and the country’s embassy said it was “following the case closely and with deep concern.” The Bologna city attorney has already opened a case against two officers and four paramedics, ordering an autopsy. But this case is also significant because for the first time a so-called criminal shield was invoked. This legal device, introduced in the right-wing government’s security decree this April, can prevent attorneys from writing someone on the suspect list if there is reason to believe they acted in self-defense or — crucially for violence by police — in the line of duty. This restarted debates about the propriety of this measure that many Italians already feared would give police too much power, and even impunity.
https://jacobin.com/2026/07/italy-fakir-police-violence-protestRemembering Lindsey Graham Not for the Evil He Did But for the Fun He Had Doing ItWhen Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham died suddenly on Saturday night, July 11, corporate media’s elegiac coverage didn’t just whitewash his record—it illustrated the affinity and symbiosis between the press corps and the politician they were meant to hold to account. Like corporate journalists, Graham played a key role in cheerleading imperial wars and promoting domestic inequality. And Graham and the media both prioritized the appearance of bipartisanship while normalizing Trump and his politics.
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.