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Euractiv
22-07-2025
- Health
- Euractiv
Wild Animals Not Pets – The Case for an EU Positive List
Health This video captures highlights from the event: Wild Animals Not Pets – The Case for an EU Positive List. A gathering of policymakers, experts, and animal welfare advocates at the European Parliament to discuss the trade in wild animals and its implications for welfare, health, and biodiversity | 22 Jul 2025 | 12:00 | 1 min. read | video This video captures highlights from the event: Wild Animals Not Pets – The Case for an EU Positive List. A gathering of policymakers, experts, and animal welfare advocates at the European Parliament to discuss the trade in wild animals and its implications for welfare, health, and biodiversity. Speakers reflected on the importance of: Establishing an EU-wide positive list of species permitted as pets Addressing the risks wild animal trade poses to animal welfare, public health, and biodiversity Tackling fragmented national rules and the need for harmonised EU legislation Strengthening EU animal welfare frameworks to better protect wild species At a time when animal welfare and biodiversity face increasing pressures, these insights point to the need for coherent, science-based policies that safeguard both animals and society. Euractiv is part of the Trust Project More from this section
Time of India
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Five years of Black Lives Matter: 3 ways MAGA changed the narrative around George Floyd's death
When George Floyd died under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin five years ago, the outrage was swift and widespread. Republicans and Democrats, police chiefs and civil rights activists, media houses and corporate executives all agreed: it was horrific. 'It's police brutality, obviously,' said conservative commentator Ben Shapiro at the time. Today, that consensus lies in ruins. A growing cohort of MAGA influencers and right-wing pundits is not only questioning Chauvin's guilt — they're actively calling for his pardon. What began as a bipartisan moment of reckoning has been transformed into a cautionary tale for conservatives about 'woke' overreach, racial politics, and media distortion. As the fifth anniversary of Floyd's death approaches, here are three ways the MAGA movement has flipped the narrative — turning a symbol of police brutality into an emblem of right-wing grievance. 1. From 'Police Brutality' to 'Political Scapegoat' In 2020, even staunch conservatives condemned what they saw on that infamous video. But five years later, many on the right are arguing that Derek Chauvin is the real victim — railroaded by an overzealous justice system and a media-fuelled panic over race. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Buy Brass Idols - Handmade Brass Statues for Home & Gifting Luxeartisanship Buy Now Undo Ben Shapiro has led the charge, dedicating multiple podcast episodes to what he calls 'The Case for Derek Chauvin.' He now claims that Floyd did not die from asphyxiation, but from a mix of drugs, heart disease, and possibly even a rare tumour. He has started an online petition for a pardon, garnering nearly 80,000 signatures. Joining him are Trump loyalists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Charlie Kirk, Christopher Rufo and Jack Posobiec. 'It was a lie and it was always a lie,' Posobiec declared to an applauding crowd, claiming America cannot heal until Chauvin is freed. While Trump himself has not committed to a pardon — saying in March he's 'not considering it at this time' — the campaign is being framed as a loyalty test for his war on 'wokeness.' 2. BLM Framed as the Real Threat What many remember as a moment of multiracial protest against police abuse is now being repackaged by the right as the origin of social decay — a moment when the country 'lost its mind.' Conservatives point to images of looting, arson and vandalism during the 2020 protests as evidence of national hysteria. But more importantly, they blame the Floyd protests for everything from diversity quotas in corporations to 'woke indoctrination' in schools. In this revisionist framing, BLM is not a movement for justice — it is the spark that ignited a left-wing cultural revolution. Commentators like Candace Owens and Liz Collin have produced documentaries — 'The Greatest Lie Ever Sold' and 'The Fall of Minneapolis' — pushing the view that Floyd's death was misrepresented, and that the real consequence was a dangerous shift in American values. Even Kanye West, once a supporter of criminal justice reform, echoed this narrative, saying in 2022 that Floyd died of a drug overdose. 3. Turning Conspiracy Into Currency As with the Capitol riots of January 6, 2021 — which Trump later called a 'beautiful day' — the George Floyd story has been pulled into the broader MAGA playbook of reframing events through repetition, doubt, and selective 'evidence.' Within days of Floyd's death, conspiracy theories spread across platforms like YouTube and Telegram. Some claimed Floyd faked his death and was still alive. Others accused George Soros of secretly funding the protests. Even more serious claims emerged: that the trial was a 'sham,' that the jury was pressured, and that the media ignored key facts — such as one of the arresting officers being Black. Medical experts at Chauvin's trial did dispute the degree to which Floyd's drug use or medical condition contributed to his death, but the jury concluded that Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck was the decisive factor. Yet that nuance has been erased in right-wing spaces, where snippets of autopsy reports and body cam footage are repurposed to push alternative narratives. As Esosa Osa of the disinformation watchdog Onyx Impact explained, 'Repetition and amplification equals truth for our brains. This is how bad actors can hack the media.' A Symbolic Battle, a Tactical Move Even if Trump were to pardon Chauvin — which he can only do for federal charges — it would not free him from his 22.5-year state sentence. But that's beside the point. The call for a pardon is largely symbolic — a political rallying cry for conservatives who view the Floyd protests as the genesis of America's 'woke' collapse. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara has pushed back strongly. 'We all knew what we saw, and we all knew it was wrong,' he wrote in The Minnesota Star Tribune, accusing right-wing figures of trying to erase hard-won reforms. But as with many cultural battles in America's polarised media landscape, truth may matter less than which story gets told more often. And in the right-wing echo chamber, George Floyd's death is no longer a tragedy — it's a myth in need of debunking.
Boston Globe
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
How the Right has reshaped the narrative around George Floyd
Five years later, that consensus has disintegrated. The right-wing reshaping of the narrative of that day is in full swing, to the point where Shapiro is calling on President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin. Advertisement In the right's retelling, Floyd did not die from being deprived of air, and Chauvin was railroaded by a country that flew into a panic over race and did not consider the facts soberly. To build this case, conservatives have packaged misleading details from court documents, images of burning and looting during the protests, Floyd's criminal record and drug use, and legal theories that lawyers say are distorted. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Disputing facts that most people once agreed on has become part of a new political playbook, often employed by right-leaning pundits and politicians. But the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, was not just any news story. For conservatives, it was the catalyst for a kind of liberal mania that, some of them assert, led directly to racial hiring quotas, 'woke' curricula in school and white guilt. Advertisement 'President Trump's war on wokeness cannot be considered complete unless he addresses the fundamental injustice that started it all,' Shapiro said in March, in one of five episodes of his show on the 'Daily Wire' devoted to 'The Case for Derek Chauvin.' A protester and a police officer clasped hands during a rally calling for justice over the death of George Floyd, in New York, on June 2, 2020. Wong Maye-E/Associated Press Many prominent Trump supporters have joined the defense of Chauvin, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Charlie Kirk and Christopher Rufo. 'America will not be made whole until we receive justice for Derek Chauvin,' Jack Posobiec, a Trump loyalist and conspiracy theorist, told a cheering audience in December. 'The truth must come out about what happened with George Floyd. It was a lie and it was always a lie.' Shapiro started an online petition that his spokesperson said has nearly 80,000 signatures. On social platform X, Elon Musk said a pardon was 'something to think about.' Related : Brian O'Hara, the police chief of Minneapolis, has decried what he called an attempt to rewrite history, saying the goal was to undermine police reform. 'We all knew what we saw, and we all knew it was wrong,' he wrote in an opinion essay in The Minnesota Star Tribune in February. Misinformation began to circulate immediately following Floyd's death in 2020. A YouTube video amplified by conspiracy group QAnon claimed that the entire incident had been faked by the deep state and that Floyd, who is buried in Texas, was still alive. There were viral social media posts alleging that George Soros, the billionaire who has become a punching bag for the right, was secretly funding the protests, which was not true. As body camera videos and autopsy reports became available, right-wing news sites began to construct a counternarrative of the day of Floyd's arrest. Advertisement In these accounts, Chauvin was a decorated officer who was only following his police training. In fact, he was both honored for some actions and the subject of numerous complaints, and Minneapolis police officials testified that his treatment of Floyd did not conform to the department's training. Ben Shapiro spoke during a Conservative Political Action Conference on Dec 4, 2024, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tomas Cuesta/Getty Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News commentator, said Chauvin was railroaded by mob justice that he likened to a Southern lynching. Other accounts suggest Floyd died not because he was pinned down for so long, but from other causes -- a drug overdose, heart disease or maybe even a rare type of tumor. Related : At Chauvin's trial, medical experts gave conflicting opinions on all three claims. The jury concluded that Floyd would not have died but for Chauvin's actions. In December, in response to an attempt by Chauvin to overturn his conviction, a federal judge granted permission to run tests on medical samples from Floyd to determine if the tumor contributed to his death. Shapiro and other right-wing commentators also argue that the jury was under intense pressure to convict, or was predisposed to do so. These accounts purport to reveal the 'real truth' about what happened. They rely heavily on autopsy reports, body camera video and other evidence that have been available for years and were presented to the jury in great detail. Many note the fact that the autopsy found no injury to Floyd's neck, though medical examiners say that a person's air supply can be cut off with no signs of injury. In an interview, Shapiro said that he had changed his mind about Chauvin's guilt while watching the trial and that he had waited to make a case for a pardon until after Trump took office. Advertisement Such a pardon would largely be symbolic. Chauvin was convicted of both state and federal crimes, and Trump has the power to pardon him only for the federal ones. If he did so, Chauvin would be transferred from federal prison to Minnesota to serve out the rest of his 22 1/2-year state sentence. In March, Trump said he was not considering a pardon, but Shapiro was undaunted. 'Concerned citizens speak out consistently,' Shapiro told his viewers. 'Eventually, those voices permeate the administration's awareness and influence what makes it onto the president's agenda.' The narrative of the invasion of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, went through a similar shift. At first, the event was met with bipartisan condemnation. But upon taking office in January, Trump pardoned the participants in what he called a 'day of love.' Media analysts say that a strategy like Shapiro's can be effective. 'Repetition and amplification equals truth for our brains, so this is how bad actors can hack the media,' said Esosa Osa, the founder of Onyx Impact, a nonprofit that fights disinformation targeting Black communities. Over the years the machinery of reinvention has cranked on. In 2022, Ye, a vocal Trump supporter, attended the premiere of a documentary by a right-wing firebrand, Candace Owens, 'The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.' The rapper formerly known as Kanye West said afterward that Floyd had died of a drug overdose. Law enforcement officers stood along Lake Street as fires burned after a night of protests in Minneapolis on Friday, May 29, 2020, following the death of George Floyd. David Joles/Associated Press Another Chauvin defender was Liz Collin, a former Minneapolis news anchor who is married to Robert Kroll, the former head of the Minneapolis police union. Chauvin's first public comments appeared in Collin's documentary, 'The Fall of Minneapolis,' released in 2023. He called the trial 'a sham.' Advertisement In an interview, Collin said the idea that Floyd was a victim of racist brutality had caused unnecessary strife. She blamed officials who she said were slow to disclose information, and what she called the media's failure to emphasize elements of the narrative, such as the fact that one of the officers who arrested Floyd was Black. These gaps, she said, created a 'dangerous and divisive narrative that we're still living with the consequences of to this day.' With the fifth anniversary of Floyd's murder Sunday, Minnesota officials have braced for unrest over a potential pardon. And the right and the left have accused each other of using the issue -- and massaging the facts -- for political advantage. On his podcast, Tim Pool, a conservative influencer, said Democrats were exaggerating the possibility of a pardon to attack Trump. On the other hand, Larry Krasner, the liberal prosecutor in Philadelphia, warned his Instagram followers that they should not fall into the trap of rioting if Chauvin is pardoned. 'What they're trying to do is, they're trying to get people in the cities to engage in unrest so they can bring in the military,' he said. This article originally appeared in
