All posts tagged: USA

“It will be our execution order”: US deportations leave asylum seekers in limbo

Published by

An Iranian woman who was among 299 migrants deported by the United States to Panama has appealed to President Donald Trump for a reprieve so she can avoid being sent back to Iran. As a Christian convert, Artemis Ghasemzadeh, 27, could face execution or life in prison under Iran’s Sharia law if she is forced to return. UPDATE: On Thursday night, all the asylum seekers, including Artemis, were transferred to a camp in the jungle of Darién, near the Panama-Colombia border. Since then, we have lost contact with her. Speaking to me from the hotel in Panama City where the migrants are being held, Artemis Ghasemzadeh said: “Our first request is a reprieve from President Trump – just for our cases to be reviewed.” Ghasemzadeh said US officials had confiscated many of the deportees’ phones and that she was the only one talking to the media: “Everyone, really everyone, has asked me to say please do not deport us to our country of origin.” The Iranians were among the first group of 119 people flown to Panama on a US Army …

Online videos falsely claim that face masks can cause CO2 poisoning

Published by

To wear a mask or not to, that is the question that has been fiercely debated online since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the claims made by opponents of the protective face coverings is that masks can lead to suffocation from the carbon dioxide (CO2) we exhale. Proponents of this theory have posted videos online in which they use gas detectors to claim that the amount of CO2 we breathe when wearing a mask is extremely dangerous. However, there is no factual basis for that claim. We take a closer look. In a flurry of videos posted online, social media users – most of them American – explain that wearing a mask can be dangerous for your health. To demonstrate this, they use a gas detector, which can be bought in a hardware store for somewhere between 40 and 100 euros, to “measure” the CO2 level inside their masks. In the videos, the meter goes wild when they start to breathe, indicating a high level of carbon dioxide in the space between …

YouTube shooter’s online posts: No, she was not a radical Muslim

Published by

In the hours after Iranian-born Nasim Aghdam’s shooting attack on the YouTube headquarters, when she wounded three people and killed herself, figures from the pro-Trump alt-right in the US were quick to associate her with radical Islam. But in fact, her own posts suggest she was critical of radical Islam, skeptical of Iran’s religious regime and not a Muslim herself.