Nuevo discurso

Seguidores de Iván Cepeda protestaron el domingo a la noche frente ala Universidad Nacional de Colombia, en el centro de Bogotá. Foto: Reuters

«Preparen sus maletas»

Soldados patrullan uno de los centros de votación donde se revisan los votos, tras las denuncias del presidente Gustavo Petro, en Bogotá, este lunes. Foto: REUTERS

Contrapesos

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas on Monday dissented from the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up a case that they said forces police officers to create a separate set of rules for racial minorities.

«It is dangerous to allow an individual to be treated differently based on statistics, studies, or expert testimony that purports to show that members of the racial or ethnic group to which he belongs are more likely to act in a certain way than are members of other groups,» Alito wrote on behalf of himself and Thomas. «Here, the special treatment helped the individual; in other situations it will not.»

The case, U.S. v. Donte J. Carter, involved a Black man whose firearm and theft convictions were vacated after the D.C. Court of Appeals held that police seized him before they had reasonable suspicion. Officers later recovered a .40-caliber pistol from Carter’s pants and the government said the gun had been stolen from an FBI agent’s vehicle.

According to the D.C. court, «black Americans like [Carter] are ‘especially distrustful of law enforcement’» and therefore «‘less likely’ than other people ‘to terminate a police encounter’ due to skepticism that any attempt to exercise their constitutional rights will be respected.» 

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The D.C. court reasoned that Carter’s race was relevant to whether a reasonable person in his position would have felt free to end the police encounter. It ruled that the encounter effectively became a seizure, and that such an action was unlawful because police officers hadn’t established reasonable suspicion before subjecting him to it.

Alito and Thomas argued that the D.C. ruling effectively forces law enforcement to treat people differently based on their race, something precedent established by the Supreme Court prohibits.

«Under the test, officers will need to quickly assess a person’s race, and if officers and courts must craft special rules for black persons, what about dark-skinned Latinos, other Latinos, and members of other minority groups?» Alito continued. «We have said that our ’Constitution is color-blind.’ It ‘almost never’ allows government actors to treat persons differently based on their race.»

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas appears before swearing in Pam Bondi as U.S. Attorney General in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

To support his claims, Alito cited Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Louisiana v. Callais and Shaw v. Reno. 

«And we have rejected the proposition that the Constitution permits an individual to be treated differently based on a ‘perception that members of the same racial group — regardless of their age, education, economic status, or the community in which they live — think alike,’» Alito wrote, citing Shaw v. Reno.

This appears to be a direct challenge to the D.C. Court of Appeals, which lawyers representing the United States argued forced police officers to assume that all black people have the same attitudes toward police officers and would therefore feel uncomfortable exercising constitutional rights in their presence.

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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito are seen inside the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., in December 2023. (Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/Getty Images)

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Carter, the individual Alito noted was helped by the case, initially lied to officers by answering in the negative when approached and asked if he was carrying a weapon.

The police then asked Carter to pull his pants up, at which point they noticed an L-shaped bulge which was later identified as a .40-caliber pistol that had been stolen from a federal agent’s vehicle.

As the Trump administration pushes forward with a new Iran deal, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg told a Paris gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an exiled Iranian opposition coalition aligned with the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) — that Tehran’s rulers are weaker than they have been in decades and urged dissidents to seize what he described as a historic opening.

«The window is open wider than at any moment in a generation, and windows do not stay open forever,» Kellogg said at the two-day event. «The theocratic regime in Tehran will not leave voluntarily. You must force it. The hope is here. Now must come the action.»

Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, framed any disarmament agreement not as an endpoint, but as «the first step of something far larger,» saying it should become the foundation for Iran’s future without the current regime.

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Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s president-elect, used her remarks at the conference to argue that neither war nor negotiations had solved the threat posed by Tehran’s rulers. «A peaceful, non-nuclear Iran is possible only through the overthrow of this regime by the Iranian people and their organized Resistance,» Rajavi said, adding that any international agreement to end the war should include an end to executions of political prisoners and the killing of protesters.

Kellogg also invoked the NCRI’s 2002 disclosure of Iran’s Natanz and Arak nuclear sites, saying the group should play a role in pushing for strict verification of any agreement. «When I say trust, but verify, understand that verification is not an abstraction to this Council. It is your legacy,» he said. «You must be the conscience that ensures every barrel of uranium leaves, every centrifuge stops, and every promise on that page becomes a fact on the ground.»

The remarks came as NCRI organizers had expected tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates from North America and Europe to attend two days of events in Paris. French authorities banned a planned outdoor rally, citing security threats. A French court later upheld the ban, pointing to specific intelligence about alleged bomb threats and risks of violence involving rival Iranian opposition factions, including possible threats from Iranian regime-linked actors or monarchist groups.

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Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, speaks at the NCRI’s two-day conference in Paris, where she called for a democratic republic in Iran and said any international agreement should include an end to executions of political prisoners. June 21, 2026. (Mousa Mohebbi)

The NCRI’s main member organization is the MEK, which was previously listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., U.K. and European Union before being delisted in 2012. The group is a major thorn in the side of the Tehran regime and has been the target of alleged Iranian plots in the U.S. and Europe, including a foiled 2018 bomb plot against the group’s rally outside Paris.

Despite the ban, demonstrators gathered at the site on Saturday. Police ordered the crowd to disperse and arrested around 20 people, a police source told AFP.

Ali Safavi, a member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital that the French decision amounted to «an unjustifiable act of capitulation,» arguing that Paris should have protected the rally rather than banning it, «Rather than yielding to intimidation, France should have defended the fundamental democratic right to peaceful assembly.»

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also criticized the French ban, calling it a «tragic mistake» and saying Western capitals must allow Iranian opposition voices to be heard.

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Supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran gather in Paris on June 20, 2026, after French authorities banned an outdoor rally against repression and executions in Iran. Police ordered demonstrators to disperse and arrested around 20 people, according to AFP. (National Council of Resistance of Iran)

«If the voices of freedom are to be heard in Iran, then we in the West must allow those voices of freedom to be heard in our capitals and around the world,» Johnson said during his speech.

Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also addressed the event Saturday, linking Ukraine’s struggle against Russia to the Iranian opposition’s fight against Tehran. Kuleba said Ukrainians had wanted to join the rally and were «appalled» by the French ban, adding, «The people of Ukraine stand by those who defend democracy, freedom, liberty in their lands.»

He also pointed to Iran’s support for Russia’s war effort, saying that while Russian ballistic missiles were targeting Kyiv, drones using technology «provided to Russia by the current regime in Iran» were also striking Ukraine.

Supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran gather in Paris after French authorities banned a rally against repression and executions in Iran, June 20, 2026. (National Council of Resistance of Iran)

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«Like you, I know very well what it means to be attacked and killed and destroyed by the regime that currently holds its grip over the people of Iran,» Kuleba said.

The French government did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.