#Comstock Laws

[gwydionmisha]

#Abortion Access #Abortion Ban #Reproductive Rights #Anti-obscenity Law #Comstock Laws #News

[victusinveritas]

#sex education #minnesota #idiots #keep sex ed in schools #comstock laws

[thoughtportal]

Last Friday the Supreme Court issued a stay on a lower court ruling that revoked the Food and Drug Administration’s more than 20-year-old approval of mifepristone, one of two medications that have been prescribed together for decades in the U.S. to end unwanted pregnancies. The ruling temporarily preserves access to a safe and effective abortion medication while the case goes through appeals.

Two weeks earlier Texas district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk had ruled in favor of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group of antiabortion organizations and doctors demanding the withdrawal of mifepristone’s FDA approval. The Department of Justice and the drug’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, quickly appealed the decision. About a week later the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals only partially stayed the ruling, maintaining mifepristone’s approval but restricting its distribution by mail. The Supreme Court decision removes that limit for now.

Kacsmaryk’s initial ruling and the Fifth Circuit decision cited a 19th-century law known as the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious” materials by mail—including not just nude drawings but also materials or information related to abortion or contraception. That law was spearheaded by Anthony Comstock, a Christian moralist activist and head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Congress passed the law and appointed Comstock as a special agent of the U.S. Postal Service, giving him the power to arrest people for violations. Comstock ultimately became a public laughingstock for his prudishness, and the Supreme Court overturned the law’s restrictions on birth control in 1965. But the rest of the Comstock Act quietly remained on the books—and the lawsuit over mifepristone is likely to put Comstock’s antiabortion policies back on the Supreme Court’s docket.

Science journalist and author Annalee Newitz spent years researching and interviewing people about the Comstock Act and Comstock himself for their 2019 novel The Future of Another Timeline, in which characters time travel to try to prevent Comstock from getting his law passed. Scientific American spoke with Newitz about what history their research uncovered and how a 150-year-old obscenity law is being used to restrict abortion and reproductive rights in the 21st century.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

Who was Anthony Comstock, and how did the Comstock Act come about?

Anthony Comstock was a very famous moral crusader based in New York [City] in the mid-19th century. His career started mostly because he was interested in stamping out obscenity—and by obscenity he meant any imagery [or literature] that contained nudity. He was extreme for his time, but at a certain point, he managed to connect with the New York City YMCA, which was also against what they were referring to as “obscenity.” By connecting with them, he got access to a lot of powerful New Yorkers who were able to fund his campaign. He got himself a position as a special inspector at the postal service. Much of the Comstock Act’s power comes from the ability to regulate communications across state lines.

The law forbids the sending of obscene materials through the mail. Comstock was enforcing the law by ordering thousands of items through the mail, from contraceptives and sex toys to erotic images and abortifacients [substances that end a pregnancy]. Then, after receiving the items, he would prosecute the people sending them. He was targeting people who were known to be selling the raw material but also, more importantly, people who were selling any kind of information that was education-related, not obscene—literally things like “Here’s how to make a baby” and also information about birth control and abortion. The Comstock Act was actually a First Amendment exemption law. It was a law about obscenity: what could be said and what could be passed through the mail. Under that, any information or material related to reproductive health or abortion or sex education was classified as obscene.

That is a very different model from how, in the contemporary world, we understand abortion—because abortion was kind of precariously made semi-legal in the 1970s under the Fourth Amendment, under privacy laws. So basically, to the extent that we started bringing the Comstock laws [a set of laws including and related to the Comstock Act] back, they do a complete end-run around any of the laws that we’ve made since that time to protect people’s ability to have abortions—because it’s not about privacy; it’s about obscenity.

In the early 20th century there was a meme that was started by the playwright George Bernard Shaw, who wrote an op-ed in the New York Times making fun of Comstock—because by the late 19th century, even though the laws were in effect, many modern young people thought that he was an idiot. These included people reading presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull's popular newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which Comstock continually tried to shut down. George Bernard Shaw said America was suffering from “Comstockery.” He was using this term to refer to the censorship and puritanical nature of American art, and it became a meme. People started using ‘Comstockery’ to make fun of any kind of art or storytelling or writing or politics that was old-fashioned and puritanical.

How have the Comstock Act and related laws evolved over time?

Sign up for Scientific American’s free newsletters.

The Comstock laws were being actively used basically up through the 1960s, which is shocking. And in the 1970s we see on the Supreme Court a revolution in our understanding of what obscenity is and a kind of rejiggering of the First Amendment—because, remember, obscenity is an exemption to the First Amendment. In the early 20th century, this idea of Comstockery becomes really popular. The laws are viewed as old-fashioned. And they’re not really taken off the books, but they’re mostly ignored. And at the same time, courts are using them to continue limiting, especially, abortifacients, abortion information and reproductive health information.

In the 1930s there were some rulings around the Comstock Act that broadened its application to different kinds of birth control but at the same time limited how the law could be used if people were sending abortifacients for unlawful uses. So in the 1930s there’s this limit where it only counts under the Comstock Act if you deliberately are sending somebody something [to illegally abort a pregnancy]. Then, in the 1950s, there’s an expansion of the Comstock Act to include any substance that could lead to an abortion.

Then you get this shift in the early 1970s around privacy law, and reproductive health is placed under privacy. Pretty much every lawyer I’ve ever talked to about this who’s super knowledgeable about reproductive rights is like, Why did we do that? That was such a precarious ruling—so easy to roll back, as we’ve seen [with last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade]. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. But in the process, of course, that meant that these Comstock laws remained on the books in a lot of places.

In The Future of Another Timeline, characters travel back in time to try to prevent the Comstock laws. When you wrote the book, did you expect these laws would be used in a ruling like the recent mifepristone case?

Definitely not. I’m probably the only person who has written a time travel story about trying to defeat Comstock, although I’d love to be wrong about that. But there are a lot of folks who are law experts and obscenity experts, whose work I read over the years, who have said the laws that protect people’s rights to have an abortion and people’s rights to have access to birth control are super precarious—and what we really need to do is have a law that says abortion is legal and birth control is legal. But what we keep doing because of our Comstockery as a nation is saying, “Oh, we wouldn’t want to give people rights to have an abortion. Why don’t we just say that they have a right to do whatever they want in private, and then we’ll just avoid talking about the issue?” And what that means is that we continue to allow women to become second-class citizens whenever the fuck we want.

How did Comstock use the courts and other means to enforce his agenda?

In the 19th century, Comstock was like, I'm going to use ... surveillance, and I’ll use this brand-new position in the postal service [to police what he called obscenity]. He also had kind of an army of deputized suppressors of vice—he ran this organization called the New York Society for Suppression of Vice, which just sounds like something out of a Marvel comic. And they would do these arrests all the time. So it feels very much like, yes, it comes out of using the courts. But it also comes out of abusing police power because these were people who were, like, pseudo police officers, and they would figure out who was an abortion provider. Comstock once reported breaking into the house of someone who was performing an abortion and dragging him and the patient to the police station to make a point. He described the woman as 'very sick' when she arrived at the police station, which made me imagine that she was literally bleeding on the floor.

It’s all tied up with a lot of the same issues that we’re grappling with nowadays: What kinds of books should we allow children to read? What should police powers be? What is the role of courts? But you know, it’s funny, because now that they’re picking on mifepristone, I think we’re going to get a really funny backlash from an unexpected source, perhaps—which is the pharmaceutical industry. That’ll be interesting to see play out because I think that the pharmaceutical industry sees that, “oh, we know where this is going.” Like, “This is going to go after our bottom line.” I could easily see a judge saying, “We shouldn’t be sending Viagra [by mail] because it’s not for reproduction.”

We might get a similar situation to what Comstock faced in the 19th century, when he was really trying to prevent abortions and sex education. But because he went after art that contained nudity, he ended up pissing off a lot of people who were very powerful, who thought he was suppressing free expression and innocent expressions of intellectual curiosity.

What happened to Comstock himself?

He was basically laughed out of his positions of power. By the time he died, he really was considered to be just a joke. Right after he dies is when Margaret Sanger starts founding her clinics, which eventually become Planned Parenthood. So even that aspect of his work is kind of crushed under the wheels of this new era of family planning.

Given that the Comstock laws are being used to go after the distribution of abortion medication, could they also be used to go after contraception?

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s exactly why drug companies are sitting up and taking notice and sending briefs. This is now an attack on science. So they’re using abortifacients as an excuse to attack a broad range of medical interventions. [Editor’s Note: Congress repealed the parts of the Comstock Act dealing with contraceptives in 1971.]

If you were going back in time to rewrite your book, how would you write the next chapter in this story?

When I was working on the book, I was thinking about how Comstock’s strategy has continued into the present. But a big part of my book is about strategies of resistance and hope and how, in fact, Comstock was defeated pretty soundly. Not only were his laws ignored [after a series of Supreme Court decisions strictly limiting their application], but also he was a laughingstock. The way that happened was that very different groups of people came together. In my book, I show that the wealthy elite of New York had common cause with these marginalized women who were at the Chicago World’s Fair performing belly dances. And this is all based on a true story: Comstock tried to shut down one of the exhibits in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair because they were putting on belly dancers, and he thought belly dancing was obscene. These are not groups that normally hang out together, but they did come together.

I think that’s why now it’s really interesting to see the power players who are coming together [to oppose restrictions on abortion]. We are seeing people resisting in the name of feminism and in the name of queer rights…. But then you also have drug companies—super capitalists—coming together with these groups that normally they’re not hanging out with. I think we’re seeing the beginnings of a new kind of resistance that combines powerful capitalists and powerful politicians with marginalized people who are the victims of these Comstock laws. So I think there’s a lot of hope.

#article #annalee newitz #anthony comstock #comstock laws #us supreme court #19th century #reproductive justice #reproductive freedom #reproductive rights #reproductive choice #reproductive health #history #chicago world's fair #online privacy #privacy #pharmaceuticals industry #health

[ostensiblynone]

Sheik #25 Condoms | National Museum of American History

This box of twelve, individually wrapped Sheik brand condoms made by Julius Schmid Inc. was part of a package sent to druggists for sale during the 1930s. While condom availability is widespread today, prior to World War Two, the pharmacist or the physician were often the only way in which a civilian could legitimately procure a dependable condom, and even then, most condom sellers had to be careful to market their products as a protection from disease only, and not for contraceptive purposes. In 1882, 17-year-old Julius Schmid emigrated from Germany to the United States. Soon after his arrival in New York City, Schmid began work as a sausage caser, an occupation that led him towards the manufacture and sale of condoms. The discovery of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear in 1839 revolutionized the condom industry, and Schmid was one of the most successful purveyors of the improved contraceptive sheathes. Schmid's sale of condoms initially ran him afoul of obscenity laws, but by 1938 he had become the first person to trademark a condom brand and was earning over $900,000 annually. He died in 1955. Collection: Reid Drugstore Maker: Julius Schmid, Inc. Place Made: United States: New York, New York City

#1930s #comstock laws #condoms #history #fic research #united states history

[999-roses]

United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries

the courts ruled against the US btw. & then ruled against the US AGAIN on appeal

#im revisiting a social movement that ran roughly parallel to the eugenics movement in the US - the anti-vice/obscenity movement #tho im not sure if it's like officially known as a movement? in the way that eugenics or 1st wave feminism or temperance/prohibition were #it's mostly comstock laws (banned gambling & drinking & porn/any material related to sex including contraceptives&info) #which legally defined 'obscenity'. first comstock laws were 1870s roughly the same start as eugenics mvt #comstock was more puffed up about 'obscenity' like absolutely anything related to sex & less about specifically drinking #that's a different group of people. the temperance movement (prohibition of alcohol) was active in similar timeframe (late1800-early1900) #it's funny b/c the anti-vice & birth control folks (affiliated w both feminists & eugenicists) butted heads over contraceptives & sex ed #anyway this one stuck out to me as pretty funny both in context and out of context #history #yeah this rotten hell country has barely changed socially huh. #usa pol

[jhsharman]

"Banned in Boston"

I notice Betty's line of vision shifts between the two variants. It turns it into sequential art -- she is now taking it in, gazing up and down with that... very happy smile... on her face.

"Banned in Boston" is a term that fell by the wayside as the Warren court sided on behalf of a bunch of literary and artistic efforts against charges of obscenity -- leaving aside the founding Boston Puritan and the powerful stranglehold of Anthony Comstock. No longer were there abrupt shutdowns on movies and plays, an authority coming down the aisle shouting "I've seen enough!". There was in the field of comics a famous example of an EC parody for 'Night Before Christmas' and an issue of Panic, seemingly making a goof on suicide, that got that one "banned in Boston". But that's edgy humor you would never see in Archie Comics of old.

Incidentally -- Betty does come back to that seat positioning a time or two sitting, watching as Veronica models this or that attire. Interesting arrangement.

#Banned in Boston #Archie Comics #Betty Cooper #Chair sitting #Veronica Lodge #Bikini modeling #Warren Court #Obscenity laws #Dan Decarlo #Ann Auriemma #I am curious on just what she suggested #1962 #Samm Schwartz #Coach Kleats #Gun against head #1961 #bad baseball team #What are these 3 states to which Veronica refers? #Anthony Comstock #Panic #bikini

[axiolotl]

man the US has been so ingrained with censorship for so long that people forget how fuckin insidious it is. even the most recent 99% invisible is like, how quirky, the little bleep to censor swear words! y'know, censorship that originally started with censoring birth control activists because of the Comstock Obscenity laws! teehee! like oh my GODDDD

#ellis.txt #the comstock laws just fucked over so many people so long and shaped the country so poorly

[archaalen]

How the Comstock Act could be used to ban abortion nationwide https://www.npr.org/2024/04/10/1243802678/abortion-comstock-act

#ap news #us politics #abortion law #comstock act #project 2025

[infinitemonkeytheory]

Way back in 2022 when leaks revealed that the Supreme Court was going to overturn Roe v. Wade, I said that they may try “to send us back to 1972, but the fact of the matter is that they can’t, because to do that they’d have to get rid of the internet and 50 years of medical advances,” referring in part to the availability and safety of abortion medication. I regret to inform you that the anti-choice Religious Right saw that video, thought I made a good point, and decided they were going to have to go ahead and get rid of the internet and 50 years of medical advances.

[…]

As of this filming, the Supreme Court of the US is currently hearing a case that could effectively ban abortion nationwide. The good news is that experts seem to agree that that’s not going to happen, yet. The bad news is that there are signs the conservative lunatics on the bench are willing to entertain other ways that Christian conservatives can decide what medicine everyone else gets to have.

[…]

The case is so ridiculous that even the lunatic regressive judges have expressed skepticism during arguments. They would obviously LOVE to rule in favor of the Alliance of Doctors Who Hate Women, but this would be a bridge too far even for them, especially mere months before a very important presidential race that may well be decided by the majority of Americans who steadfastly refuse to agree that the government should tell women and other birthing people and doctors what to do. The anti-abortion push is wildly unpopular across the nation and every new dumbfuck ruling just makes it that much more likely that people will turn up for Biden in November.

So that’s good, but what’s not good has been seeing the conservative lunatic justices batting around some ideas for what’s next, and that involves the Comstock laws. Comstock is what’s known as a Zombie Law, in that it hasn’t been enforced since at least the 1970s but now that Roe v. Wade is gone, it is unfortunately once again relevant. It involves “obscenity,” which, when Comstock was first introduced in 1873, was defined as “whatever your local pastor says it is,” including but not limited to pornography, sex toys, saying the words “cheese and crackers” when we all know you mean “Jesus Christ,” and yes, birth control and abortifacients, and information on where to procure such things.

Comstock said that you can’t use the postal service to send any “obscene” materials, and then later added that you can’t use any private service like FedEx to do it, either.

[…]

[J]ust to be clear, the ban wasn’t just about sending things to individual people, but it also applied to stocking the actual OB-GYN clinics that would then provide contraceptives and whatnot to patients.

[…]

And so, with Roe v. Wade gone, the reanimated corpse of Comstock is threatening to come for our abortions. Even married people’s abortions. Even Blue State abortions. This would be a federal ban on abortions, and the only thing that is required to kickstart it is for someone to just start enforcing it again, which is already in the playbook for Project 2025, Donald Trump’s playbook, which also includes just lighting the planet on fire and getting it over, already.

Obviously, blue states would challenge such enforcement, but guess where that will end up? Yep, the Supreme Court, where as I speak Justices Thomas and Alito just can’t stop talking about Comstock and how weird it is that the FDA thinks they can just get away with flagrantly providing women healthcare while the moldering corpse of this very constitutional law is standing in the corner with sunglasses on, waiting to be fully reanimated.

So yeah, that’s what’s going on. Vote in November, obviously, but also consider telling your Congress critter to repeal Comstock.

#skepchick #comstock #roe v wade #scotus #reproductive health #healthcare #contraception #abortion access #please vote #zombie laws

[1929crash]

Votes per Dollar 2020

Republicans had to pay nine times as much per vote as Libertarian candidates. Democrats had to pay 13 times as much per vote as Libertarian candidates. This shows that individuals are disproportionately more willing to vote for Libertarian (not anarchist) policies than be gulled by either faction of the entrenched Kleptocracy. These disparities contribute hugely to our leveraged, law-changing…

View On WordPress

#clout #coercion #collectivism #Comstockism #conservative #entrenched #girl-bullying #law-changing #leverage #mystical #old #ossified #prohibitionism #senile #spoiler votes

[gwydionmisha]

#Anti-Abortion #Republicans #Comstock Laws #Election 2024 #Abortion Ban #Abortion #News

[dduane]

"GOP operatives have already crafted an expansive blueprint, 887 pages long, laying out in painstaking detail how they intend to govern, including plans to leverage virtually every arm, tool and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access. The document explicitly names their intention not just to rescind FDA approval for the abortion pill if they regain control of the White House in 2024, but to revive a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending or receiving through the mail any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could be used to facilitate an abortion. That law, the Comstock Act, is viewed as a de facto federal abortion ban by reproductive rights advocates and anti-abortion activists alike."

When somebody tells you in that much detail what they're going to do if you let them... believe them.

Please get registered early, and vote.

#US politics

[kiramoore626]

Opinion: The 19th century sexual purity law that some want to revive

The Comstock Act, originally passed in 1873, had hardly been enforced in a century when Kacsmaryk’s April 2023 ruling called attention to it. Anti-abortion lawyers, led by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas attorney general who helped to create Texas’s abortion bounty bill, SB8, saw untapped potential in the archaic law. These abortion opponents pointed to language in the Comstock Act that made…

View On WordPress

#Abortion #Comstock Act #Freedom of Speach #Law #Matthew Kacsmaryk #Opinion #Republicans

[ostensiblynone]

Non-Slip Fourex (1 Per Packet) | National Museum of American History

INSTRUCTIONS-Moisten skin thoroughly in water-then draw it lightly through the fingers to remove excess water and holding the skin by elastic band pull on as you would a glove. Never use a skin without moistening and do not place in hot water-use tepid water.

Sold in drug stores only for protection against disease.

Manufactured by JULIUS SCHMID, INC., N. Y. C. MADE IN U. S. A. PRINTED IN U. S. A. No. 423-PRICE 3 for $1.00-$3.50 per dozen

Collection: Reid Drugstore

#condoms #comstock laws

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/on-the-scarlet-letters/

On The Scarlet Letters

Language, which is vital to humankind, can take us down many paths some of which lead to self-delusion.  I learned this lesson in a philosophy class years ago in college. The professor opened the session with a simple question.  “Who can define the word chair for me?”  Eager to excel, I spoke first.  “A chair is something to sit on.” The professor’s eyes narrowed to shards of glass when he heard me.  “So,  if you sit on a wall, it becomes a chair?” Several more minutes into the exchange– my classmates’ expressions bright with glee as the professor tied my arguments into knots–I gained a respect for language.  The lesson is one I later imparted to my students.  I like to think many of them remember the day when I returned their first essays to them, each page dripping with red ink as if paper could bleed.  As a writer, I rejoice in the richness of words but am ever mindful of their capacity to mislead. Take buckle, for example.  Does it describe an effort to secure an object? Or does it mean the item has collapsed?  Diplomacy thrives on language ambiguity. Representatives at the recent G-20 summit came away from their gathering wreathed in smiles.  They had drafted a document about the war in Ukraine to which Russia and the West could agree. Success came at a price, however.  Vacuous wording had rendered the text as meaningless as a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi. Similarly, language plays a critical role in the abortion debate, starting with definitions. Is a fertilized ovum an egg or a child? Are anti-abortion states hostile to women or are they places of sanctuary for the unborn?    (“Comstocked.” Soshanna Ehrlich, MS, Fall, 2023, pg. 28.)    Rather than wrangle over meaning, some anti-abortionists have recently shifted ground.  The focus is no longer on eggs but on morality.  Several states have chosen to enforce the Comstock law, a prohibition passed in 1873 and still on the nation’s books.  (Ibid, pg. 30.)  The legislation doesn’t speak to abortion, but it does ban the shipment or receipt of any abortion-related equipment, which would affect Mifepristone, a drug commonly used to end pregnancies. (Ibid, pg. 31)   This shift in strategy includes a shift in language which is manipulative. People may differ on abortion rights, but few are willing to cheer for obscenity. Never mind that morality laws fall heaviest upon women. Hester Prynne, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, wears the scarlet letter A for adultery instead of the Reverend who is the illegitimate child’s father.  That same bias exists today. Says one outraged moralist, if women want reproductive control over their bodies, they can refrain from having sex.  (Ibid, pg. 29.) Polonius, the king’s advisor in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a man skilled at dissembling with words.  Even so, his advice to his son is exemplary. To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou cannot play false with any man.  Delivered for laughs, the line is among literature’s most scathing examples of hypocrisy. His spirit lives today in Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene who makes repeated demands of her colleagues for etiquette and respect.  Her insistence curdles the mind for it comes from a woman who shouted liar during Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address.  It comes from a woman who would have us believe treason is an act of patriotism.   Whether we use words to serve truth or to deceive is a matter of personal decision. Should we choose the latter, hiding our intentions in verbal trickery, we will not escape the consequence of that choice.  In our innermost minds, the deception will haunt us because it will serve as a mirror to reflect our true natures.

#Comstock Law #G-20 Summit #hiding behind words #language richness invites deception #Marjorie Taylor Greene #Mifepristone #morality in the abortion war #Nathaniel Hawthorne #Polonious #Puritan values in language #Soshanna Ehrlich #The Scarlet Letter #verbal trickery betrays us #Word meanings #word war on abortion

[zvaigzdelasas]

[BBC is UK State Media]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has funded politically-motivated assassinations in Yemen, a BBC investigation has found, exacerbating a conflict involving the Yemeni government and warring factions which has recently returned to the international spotlight following attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

Counter-terrorism training provided by American mercenaries to Emirati officers in Yemen has been used to train locals who can work under a lower profile - sparking a major uptick in political assassinations, a whistleblower told BBC Arabic Investigations.

The BBC has also found that despite the American mercenaries' stated aim to eliminate the jihadist groups al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) in southern Yemen, in fact the UAE has gone on to recruit former al-Qaeda members for a security force it has created on the ground in Yemen to fight the Houthi rebel movement and other armed factions.

The UAE government has denied the allegations in our investigation - that it had assassinated those without links to terrorism - saying they were "false and without merit".

These are largely between the two parts of the "real" "legitimate" "internationally recognized" coalition govt of Yemen you've been scolded so much about over the last month btw [22 Jan 24]

Continued after the cut

The killing spree in Yemen - more than 100 assassinations in a three-year period - is just one element of an ongoing bitter internecine conflict pitting several international powers against each other in the Middle East's poorest country.[...]

In 2015, the US and the UK supported a coalition of mostly Arab states led by Saudi Arabia - with the UAE as a key partner - to fight back. The coalition invaded Yemen with the aim of reinstating the exiled Yemeni government and fighting terrorism. The UAE was given charge of security in the south, and became the US's key ally on counter-terrorism in the region - al-Qaeda had long been a presence in the south and was now gaining territory.[...]

Under international law, any killing of civilians without due process would be counted as extra-judicial.

The majority of those assassinated were members of Islah - the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It [...] has never been classified by the US as a terror organisation, but is banned in several Arab countries - including the UAE where its political activism and support for elections is seen by the country's royal family as a threat to their rule.

Leaked drone footage of the first assassination mission gave me a starting point from which to investigate these mysterious killings. It was dated December 2015 and was traced to members of a private US security company called Spear Operations Group.[...]

Isaac Gilmore, a former US Navy Seal who later became chief operating officer of Spear, was one of several Americans who say they were hired to carry out assassinations in Yemen by the UAE.

He refused to talk about anyone who was on the "kill list" provided to Spear by the UAE - other than the target of their first mission: Ansaf Mayo, a Yemeni MP who is the leader of Islah in the southern port city of Aden, the government's temporary capital since 2015.[...]

Mr Gilmore, and another Spear employee in Yemen at the time - Dale Comstock - told me that the mission they conducted ended in 2016. But the assassinations in southern Yemen continued. In fact they became more frequent, according to investigators from the human rights group Reprieve.

They investigated 160 killings carried out in Yemen between 2015 and 2018. They said the majority happened from 2016 and only 23 of the 160 people killed had links to terrorism. All the killings had been carried out using the same tactics that Spear had employed - the detonation of an improvised explosive device (IED) as a distraction, followed by a targeted shooting. The most recent political assassination in Yemen, according to Yemeni human rights lawyer Huda al-Sarari, happened just last month - of an imam killed in Lahj by the same method.[...]

Mr Gilmore, Mr Comstock, and two other mercenaries from Spear who asked not to be named, said that Spear had been involved in training Emirati officers in the UAE military base in Aden. A journalist who asked to remain anonymous also told us he had seen footage of such training.

As the mercenaries' profile had made them conspicuous in Aden and vulnerable to exposure, their brief had been changed to training Emirati officers, "who in turn trained local Yemenis to do the targeting", the Yemeni military officer told me.

Through the course of the investigation, we also spoke to more than a dozen other Yemeni sources who said this had been the case. They included two men who said they had carried out assassinations which were not terror-related, after being trained to do so by Emirati soldiers - and one man who said he had been offered release from a UAE prison in exchange for the assassination of a senior Yemeni political figure, a mission he did not accept.

Getting Yemenis to conduct the assassinations meant it was harder for the killings to be traced back to the UAE.

By 2017, the UAE had helped build a paramilitary force, part of the Emirati-funded Southern Transitional Council (STC), a security organisation that runs a network of armed groups across southern Yemen.

The force operated in southern Yemen independently of the Yemeni government, and would only take orders from the UAE. The fighters were not just trained to fight on active front lines. One particular unit, the elite Counter Terrorism Unit, was trained to conduct assassinations, our whistleblower told us.

The whistleblower sent a document with 11 names of former al-Qaeda members now working in the STC, some of whose identities we were able to verify ourselves.

During our investigation we also came across the name Nasser al-Shiba. Once a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative, he was jailed for terrorism but later released. A Yemeni government minister we spoke to told us al-Shiba was a known suspect in the attack on the US warship USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors in October 2000. Multiple sources told us that he is now the commander of one of the STC military units. Lawyer Huda al-Sarari has been investigating human rights abuses committed by these UAE-backed forces on the ground. As a result of her work, she would frequently receive death threats. But it was her 18-year-old son Mohsen who paid the ultimate price.

He was shot in the chest in March 2019 while on a trip to a local petrol station, and died a month later.[...]

A subsequent investigation by Aden's public prosecutor found that Mohsen was killed by a member of the UAE-backed Counter Terrorism Unit, but the authorities have never pursued a prosecution.

Members of the prosecutor's office - who we cannot name for safety reasons - told us that the widespread assassinations have created a climate of fear that means even they are too afraid to pursue justice in cases involving forces backed by the UAE.

Reprieve has received a leaked UAE document that shows Spear was still being paid in 2020, though it is not clear in what capacity.

#quite a piece