File photo shows a Lada Granta model manufactured by Russia’s AvtoVAZ.
Russia’s largest car manufacturer AvtoVAZ eyes to launch a localization project in Iran where it can assemble the latest version of its popular Lada model.
AvtoVAZ CEO Maxim Sokolov said on Tuesday that launching assembly lines and dealerships in Iran will give the company a “certain competitive advantage".
“... we are betting heavily on the Iranian direction and expect that our dealership will open there soon,” Sokolov told the official news agency Tass.
He said that a business partner from Iran, which he did not identify, has asked for the entire product line of AvtoVAZ’s Lada model, including its new Iskra model.
The CEO said that Iskra would be “one step ahead” of the majority of cars currently assembled and manufactured in Iran.
AvtoVAZ seeks to expand its exports of Lada in 2025 with a special focus on markets of Iran, Kazakhstan and Vietnam, according to statements from the company.
Iranians have a good memory of old Lada models, which were famous for their safety and reliability when they hit the roads in the 1970s.
AvtoVAZ’s plans to break into the Iranian market have faced difficulties in recent years, mainly because of US sanctions on Iran.
However, growing cooperation between the automotive companies of Iran and Russia in recent years seems to have made it easier for Russian cars to enter the Iranian market.
The cooperation deepened since early 2022, when major international automotive companies, including Renault, which owned shares in AvtoVAZ, left Russia because of Western sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine.
Iran’s two largest carmakers, IKCO and Saipa, have signed contracts for exports of cars and parts to Russia.
Reports have also shown that carmakers from the two countries seek to launch joint manufacturing projects in the future.
The US blacklists firms and individuals in China and Iran for alleged role in Tehran’s missile program.
The US government has announced new sanctions targeting Chinese and Iranian firms and individuals despite the ongoing nuclear talks with Tehran.
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in a statement on Tuesday that it had imposed sanctions on six entities and six individuals for their alleged role in procuring ingredients needed in Iran’s ballistic missile program.
The designation targeted five China-based companies, one Iran-based firm, and six Iran-based people, which OFAC said had been involved in the procurement from China to Iran of sodium perchlorate and dioctyl sebacate, the ingredients it said were usable in solid propellant rocket motors.
The Iranian firm and its related people included in the blacklist were identified as Saman Tejarat Barman Trading Company, Abed, Hamed and Zahra Zargar, Forough Modarres, Abbas Pour Kazemi, and Mohammad Asgari.
The five Chinese forms were Shenzhen Amor, Dongying, Yanling Chuanxing Chemical Plant, China Chlorate Tech, and Yanling Lingfeng Chlorate.
The new sanctions are the eighth such action taken by the US government against Iran since February 4, when US President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum ordering a campaign of maximum pressure on the country.
They come despite the fact that Iran and the US have held three rounds of reportedly positive talks since early April to settle disputes about Tehran’s nuclear program. The indirect talks have been held in Oman’s capital, Muscat, and in Italy’s Rome under Oman’s mediation.
The sanctions come days after a huge explosion in Iran’s southern port of Shahid Rajaee, which media outlets based in the US and Europe claimed could have been caused by sodium perchlorate stored in the port’s dockyards.
The Iranian defense ministry has vehemently denied the reports, saying it has never used the Shahid Rajaee port for imports of sensitive materials.
Leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky
Nigerian security agents are planning coordinated attacks on the homes and properties of followers of the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, according to a report.
SaharaReporters reported on Sunday, quoting sources that the operation is scheduled to take place around 2:00 a.m. on Monday in Abuja and surrounding areas, including Maraba.
Security agents have advised their relatives to avoid locations associated with Shia Muslims in Abuja, Maraba, and other areas, the report said.
"There is a planned attack by security agents on residences and facilities of Al-Zakzaky's followers in Maitama, Asokoro, Garki, Airport Road, Maraba, etc. They said Monday at 2:00 a.m.," one source disclosed.
On March 28, 2025, at least 26 people were reportedly killed and many others injured in an attack on the IMN members by the Nigerian Army on an International Quds Day demonstration in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja.
Video footage of the scenes shows armed forces securing the perimeter as protestors flee for cover while bullet shots are heard.
The footage also shows soldiers dragging the lifeless body of a civilian on the street and dumping it into a pickup while beating two other protesters and forcing them to get into another truck.
While the event was conducted peacefully across Nigeria, the Abuja procession was targeted by the army.
The protesters were marching peacefully after observing Friday prayers at Banex Plaza when Army soldiers stationed near the mosque fired upon them.
In response, the IMN has vowed to take legal action if the Nigerian government and army fail to release detained members, including over 60 minors.
The group's legal representatives, Bala Dakum and Yushau Uthman, talked to journalists on Friday, condemned the March 28 attack and demanded justice for the victims.
“While peacefully carrying out their procession in the Banex area, Wuse II, Abuja, in their thousands, they were unexpectedly confronted by a group of armed soldiers who, without any provocation, began firing live ammunition at them,” they said.
“As a result of this inhumane, callous, cruel, barbaric and horrific attack, about 26 persons lost their lives, over 30 sustained various degrees of life-threatening injuries, and around 274 were arrested by the soldiers,” they added.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) had expressed concern over attacks against protesters after it was revealed that Nigerian authorities were making preparations in this regard as a pretext for an attack.
The Office of the National Security Adviser had stressed the necessity to stop the al-Quds day demonstration to “prevent a breach of the peace” by the pro-Palestinian protesters, according to a leaked internal letter seen by the IHRC.
In the leaked communiqué, Nigerian authorities had warned that though the pro-Palestinian demonstrations were peaceful, the protesters had the potential to seek justice by attacking US and Israeli interests in the country. Therefore, their demos must be stopped.
This method has been used by Nigeria’s pro-Israel officials in recent years to prompt the forces to stage a violent crackdown on the demonstrators.
At least one person was killed, and many more were injured after police opened fire on the Quds Day demo in Abuja in 2023.
In 2014, Nigerian security forces killed 34 demonstrators after opening fire on a rally in Zaria.
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney (L) and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (Combo photo by AFP)
Canadians have headed to polls in parliamentary elections as US President Donald Trump renews his controversial takeover bid.
Canada's elections span across six time zones with polls opening at 08:30 local time (12:00 GMT) on Monday in Newfoundland and Labrador, with the last polls closing in British Columbia at 19:00 PST (03:00 GMT on Tuesday).
Out of the country's 29 million eligible voters, a record 7.3 million, have already cast their ballots in advance to elect 343 members of parliament.
The leading candidate in the elections is from the ruling Liberal Party, incumbent Prime Minister Mark Carney, 60, who has already faced off with Trump over tariffs.
The forerunner, Conservative Party candidate Pierre Poilievre, 45, has been likened to the US president.
Both candidates have asked Trump to stay out of the elections. However, neither Carney nor Poilievre have presented a comprehensive plan to boost the country's ailing economy amid Trump's threatening trade war.
The smaller left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), led by Jagmeet Singh, has been struggling to gain traction among Canadian voters by declaring its commitment to the working class.
Singh says his party also has a plan to safeguard Canada from Trump's trade war.
The separatist Bloc Quebecois (BQ) is also taking part in the elections. BQ promotes Quebecois nationalism and its sovereignty.
However, fears over Trump's trade war and takeover threats have prompted voters to neglect the smaller parties and elect the candidates from the bigger Liberal and Conservative parties.
Historically, Canada has only been led by governments made up from these two federal parties.
Meanwhile, Trump, who has turned into a central figure in Canada's elections, has steered clear of commenting on voting results.
However, final polls put Carney slightly ahead of Poilievre. Carney was about to lose the election to Poilievre when Trump's renewed attacks on Canada sparked a sudden reversal in poll forecasts.
On January 6, the day former prime minister Justin Trudeau announced he would resign, the Conservatives led the Liberals by more than 20 points in most polls.
But Carney, a respected banker, by replacing Trudeau combined with nationwide unease about Trump's threats stirred the race in favor of the Liberals.
Now, if the Liberals, who currently hold 152 seats, win majority of the vote by taking more than 172 seats as expected, it would mark one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history.
In any case, polling experts say, the 2025 elections is of utmost importance for the region because it could impact the future by redefining Ottawa's relationship with Washington.
A satellite image taken near Puntland's Bosaso airport on March 5, 2025 shows an Israeli-made ELM-2084 3D Active Electronically Scanned Array Multi-Mission Radar supplied by the UAE. (By Google Earth)
The United Arab Emirates has reportedly deployed an Israeli military radar to Somalia’s Puntland to monitor anti-Israel attacks conducted by Yemen in support of Palestinians subjected to genocide in Gaza.
According to satellite imagery from early March, the Israeli-made ELM-2084 3D Active Electronically Scanned Array Multi-Mission Radar, which is one of the components of Israel’s Iron Dome system, was installed near Bosaso airport.
US-based Watan newspaper reported this week that the radar is aimed at monitoring strikes conducted by Yemeni forces against Israeli targets in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
“This indicates that Abu Dhabi is conducting a monitoring and protection operation on behalf of Tel Aviv from African soil,” the daily said, citing familiar sources.
According to the sources, the UAE is also facilitating negotiations for the establishment of an Israeli base in Somaliland, which declared independence from Mogadishu in 1991, in return for promises to promote international recognition of the region that lies on the Gulf of Aden.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz last year reported that Israel, with Emirati support, aims to establish a military base in Somaliland to counter the Yemeni forces.
On Thursday, Middle East Eye also cited a regional source as saying that the radar was deployed at the airport late last year.
Meanwhile, MEE cited other sources as saying the deployment took place as the UAE has been using Bosaso airport to militarily support the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.
“The UAE installed the radar shortly after the RSF lost control of most of Khartoum in early March,” a regional source told MEE.
“The radar’s purpose is to detect and provide early warning against drone or missile threats, particularly those potentially launched by the Houthis, targeting Bosaso from outside,” the source added, referring to forces of Yemen’s military and its Ansarullah resistance movement.
Sudan has accused the UAE at the International Court of Justice of violating the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in its Darfur region.
Two separate Somali sources, cited by MEE, claimed that Puntland’s President Said Abdullahi Deni did not seek approval from Somalia’s federal government or the Puntland parliament for this arrangement.
“This is a secret deal, and even the highest levels of Puntland’s government, including the cabinet, are unaware of it,” said one Somali source with direct knowledge of the issue.
Since the onset of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Yemeni forces have carried out scores of operations in support of the war-hit Gazans, striking targets throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, in addition to targeting Israeli ships or vessels heading towards ports in the occupied territories.
The sweeping power outage that hit Spain and Portugal this week has raised questions about the electricity grid in a region not normally known for blackouts.
Monday’s outage, one of the worst ever in Europe, started in the afternoon and lasted through nightfall, affecting tens of millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula. It disrupted businesses, hospitals, transit systems, cellular networks and other critical infrastructure.
Authorities in Spain and Portugal are still investigating exactly what caused the failure, though some information has emerged about happened. Here’s what to know:
What happened?
Spain and Portugal lost most of their electricity early Monday afternoon.
Shortly after 12:30 p.m. local time, Spain lost 15 gigawatts of electricity — or roughly 60% of demand in the country of 49 million, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.
There had been two significant “disconnection events” — or interruptions in power — before the outage, Spain’s electric grid operator Red Eléctrica de España said Tuesday.
While Spain’s grid managed to recover from the first event, systems operations director Eduardo Prieto said that the second was more damaging, progressing to the point of interruptions from France’s electrical system and producing “a massive, temporary disconnection.”
Instead of normal, steady voltage, Marshall said the data shows there were oscillations whose frequency and magnitude increased over the next three hours until the grid failed. He does not know what caused the instability.
Around noon, there was a big jump in the magnitude of the fluctuations, with the voltage measured going up and down by about 15 volts every 1.5 seconds, Marshall said.
“The way I would interpret our data,” Marshall said about Monday’s events, “is that the grid is struggling. Something’s wrong. And it’s showing increasing signs of instability.”
What don’t we know?
We don’t know exactly what caused Monday’s fluctuations and eventual failure.
“There’s a variety of things that usually happen at the same time, and it’s very difficult for any event to say ‘this was the root cause,’” said Eamonn Lannoye, managing director at the Electric Power Research Institute, Europe.
Lannoye said there was a range of events that can explain grid failures, including that electric grid lines or generators are switched off in some locations for maintenance.
“This could be a really complex event, I think it’s fair to say,” Lannoye said.
What causes power outages?
Power outages can have several triggers, including natural disasters and extreme weather, human-caused disasters, equipment failures, overloading transformers and wires and so on.
Electric grids are sensitive to imbalances in the amount of energy generated versus what’s used.
Enric Bartlett, an energy expert and professor of public law at Spain’s Esade business school, likened a grid’s supply and demand balance to a tandem bike.
“To avoid falling, everyone must pedal at the same cadence,” Bartlett said.
“Electrical grids are large interconnected systems, and their stability is related to a very close balance between electricity generation and demand,” said Grazia Todeschini, an engineering researcher at King’s College London.
“If one area is disconnected, it can cause knock-on effects in nearby areas,” she said, adding that while grids have measures in place to limit the impact of outages to small areas, when the imbalance is large, disruptions can spread quickly and far.
What have Spain and Portugal’s governments said?
Authorities in Spain and Portugal have downplayed the idea that a cyberattack was responsible. Spain’s High Court said it would investigate to find the cause.
On Tuesday, there was renewed attention on Spain’s renewable energy generation. The southern European nation is a leader in solar and wind power generation, with more than half of its energy last year having come from renewable sources. Portugal also generates a majority of its energy from renewable sources.
Questions remain about whether Spain’s heavy renewable energy supply may have made its grid system more susceptible to the type of outage that took place Monday. The thinking goes that non-renewable energy sources, such as coal and natural gas, can better weather the type of fluctuations observed Monday on Spain’s grid.
That is because renewable energies like solar and wind provide intermittent supply, relying on when the sun is shinning and wind is blowing. However, in recent years batteries that store energy, along with other methods, have helped regulate changes in electricity supply from renewables.
Lannoye said it was too early to draw a straight line between Monday’s event and Spain’s solar power generation.
“I think there’s some putting the cart before the horse to say this was solar,” Lannoye said, simply because there was solar power on the grid at the time of the disruption.
Why was France partially affected?
Europe’s electric grid is highly connected, meaning that it can pool power between countries. That can make the system more resilient, experts say. It also means a disruption in a major transmission artery or frequency imbalance can trigger cascading protective shutdowns across countries, according to Shreenithi Lakshmi Narasimhan, member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Spain and Portugal are connected to Europe’s main electric grid through France. Spain’s grid operator on Tuesday said that the sudden drop in power caused an interconnector between Spain and France to trip.
Among us, there are those who spread rumors, who deliberately lie, add to or take away from the Truth, thereby sowing the seeds of dissension. We must refer rumors to those in authority, who are in a position to search out the truth or falsity of the rumor.
Then, we must act on the principles of truth. This is why, in the Nation of Islam, the first lesson we are given to study is called Actual Facts, because we can never arrive at a true basis for justice without first having in our possession or grasp the actual facts.
The old world must be removed to make way for the new world. There is a universal struggle being waged by the old world against the beginning of the new world. Will the old world’s opposition prevent the establishment of the new world? According to recorded history, the efforts being made by the old world against the beginning of a new world will fail as did former opponents of Allah.
According to the history of Noah, the people ridiculed the very thought of Allah bringing a flood to drown them. Noah was laughed at and scorned for preaching such a doctrine. According to the Bible and Holy Qur’an, he was called a liar and looked upon as a crazy person. Some of the members of Noah’s family joined the mockers and disbelievers of Allah and His Messenger, who was Noah. They met the same fate as the others who disbelieved.
The opposition of that world to the advent of a better world was a total failure. So shall it be with those today who oppose the beginning of a new world of righteousness (Islam.) In the time of Abraham and his nephew (Lot)–before the birth of Ishmael and Isaac, Abraham’s two sons–the people, mockers and haters of truth and righteousness in that part of the world (the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,) had become victimized to every imaginable evil. They even threatened the life of the preacher of righteousness, Lot, disregarding the strangers (angels) visiting Lot–until it was too late. So it is with the opponents of the Messenger of Allah today in America.
The wicked always believe they are mightier than Allah, and they make a supreme effort to thwart the plan and purpose of Allah to bring about a better world. They always love to attack the Messenger to try to condemn him as a liar. Trying to prove the Messenger a liar means calling Allah a liar. The Holy Qur’an repeatedly prophesies a miserable, shameful, and disgraceful defeat for the disbelievers and hypocrites in their campaign against the last Messenger of Allah, whom Allah would raise in the time of the resurrection of the dead people.
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Messengers are never sent; they always are raised in the midst of those whom Allah would warn so they can’t claim that they did not understand the language of the Messenger, or say that he was a foreigner or stranger. The Messenger is one from them.
For nearly thirty-four years, I have served you, just as Allah’s warners-of-old served a hard-hearted and hard-headed, disbelieving people, who were great lovers of the enemies of Allah and the true religion, Islam (which means entire submission to Allah’s will.) There is mockery, and evil plans are made against my life by the wicked–just as they were made against Noah and subsequent prophets.
The powerful, rich world of Christianity–especially America–is made to seem as immovable as the mountains. But it is not impossible to remove mountains; they can be removed by high explosives. So wealth and power also can be reduced to nothing.
We are now living in the judgment, or doom, of the white man’s world. Preparations have been made to meet every effort by the white man to oppose the beginning and setting up of Allah’s new world of righteousness (Islam.) The government (U.S.A.) today watches my followers with an evil eye, seeking to deceive anyone who would enter the fold to help further the cause of truth and the upliftment of the mourning heads and the grieving hearts of the American so-called Negroes; to help make them a nation of righteousness and justice to serve as a star for the nations of their own kind forever. The U.S. government is active in its deceitful work of trying to slow the progress of the resurrection of our people.
American Whites want us to reject Allah and the true religion, Islam, and believe in their false religion and false god, whom they cannot make manifest to you. They cannot prove to you, in this day and time, that Christianity is a defense for you–as well as for themselves–against their doom.
America must be taken and destroyed, according to the prophets, at the time and end of the wicked world, where the lost-and-found members of the ancient and aboriginal people are found. America hates and mistreats her slaves to the extent that it has reached the heart of Allah and the righteous people of the earth (the Nation of Islam.)
We read where our Black brothers refer to the American so-called Negroes as their brothers, while according to the preaching’s of some of these lost-and-found members of the aboriginal nation of the earth, they would rather have themselves referred to as the brothers of their enemies.
The extent to which the enemy has poisoned the minds and hearts of my people here in America is shameful. They willfully do anything to deceive the so-called Negroes into going to their doom with them. There is no way for the enemy of Allah, His Messenger and His people (the darker people of the earth) to find strength, power and wisdom enough to win in a war against Allah. As it is written in the Christian Bible and many other places:
“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in thee, which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that arc therein shall be burnt up.” (Bible, Peter, 3:10.)
The earth shall not be burned, it will be here for many thousands of years to come. Only that on the earth (the devils) which has sinned against Allah and His laws will be destroyed. The earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars have never disobeyed Allah since their creation.
We thank the Fruit of Islam (F.O.I.), the men who belong to the Nation of Islam, for their dedication in service to their communities. These brothers are husbands, fathers and servants in the cause of Islam.
They strive to be examples to others as taught by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and demonstrated by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Every week, in cities large and small, the F.O.I. deliver light, life and power to people through the truth in the pages of The Final Call newspaper.
We thank these brothers for all they do in spreading the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad under the leadership and example of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan!
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Charlotte, N.C.MiamiMiamiM.G.T. join F.O.I. in community outreach with The Final Call in Norfolk, Virginia. Photo: Kevin Ali Muhammad HoustonFort Worth, TexasFort Lauderdale, Florida
We are one people, not tribes. And because you live in a different area, on a different turf, you don’t see yourself as the same people. You feel you have to protect what you really, in fact, do not even own.
Then, to complicate the situation, drugs are brought in. It is no longer a matter of where you live, it’s “Don’t you sell any drugs in the turf that we have carved out.”
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
And oftentimes police recruit our young people to sell drugs. I said, oftentimes some police recruit our young people to sell drugs. Why do we sell drugs? It is because we want to kill our people? No!
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It is because that is the way the enemy has opened up for us to make the kind of money that would allow us to wear good shoes, designer jeans, designer sneakers, gold chains, gold watches, diamond rings. You can’t wear that working for minimum wage all day long.
Who wants to work all day long for nothing? So when someone comes along and says, “Look here, man, sell this white powder. Give this rock of crack to your brother. You can make some money,” the money attracts you. You are not thinking about death to your people.
You are thinking about those big bucks, and if you can make $500, $700, $1,000 per week selling drugs, then who can interest you in a 9 to 5 job working for $4.25 an hour?
The oppressors know we like nice cars. They know we like nice clothes. We can’t get those things without a job, without an education, and without being able to be an entrepreneur.
Since you are not able to get a job, and you have no skills or training, you turn to selling drugs in your neighborhood, your “turf.” So you are not protecting your neighborhood, you are protecting the area where you sell the drugs. The enemy knows this. He is feeding you the drugs.
The Uzis, the AK-47’s, your enemy is feeding you automatic weapons now. You don’t make any weapons, Brother. Where did you get the weapons? You can’t go to a firing range with an Uzi. You can’t go to a firing range with a Street Sweeper, which is an automatic weapon that allows you to fire 12 rounds of 23-gauge shotgun pellets in three seconds. You aren’t going anywhere to learn to shoot that! They put that in your hand, knowing you want to practice!
So, you just look for an excuse to use your Uzi, to use your AK-47, your Street Sweeper and your Magnum. But you kill more innocent people, destroy more property, because you don’t know how to shoot!
This is all calculated. This is all part of the conspiracy.
Now your neighborhood is getting rough, and your poor mother at home is wondering if you will make it from the school to the house. She is saying, “Lord, I’ve got to move! I’ve got to get my baby out of this!” Where are you moving to, Mother?
The Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens, Henry Horner Projects, White people want this turf. When they plan downtown redevelopment, they recognize you are too close to the downtown area, the business section of the country! The White people have moved to the suburbs, and it requires gas, money and time to get to downtown Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles or Detroit.
So, they plan your removal. How? Create gangs. Feed weapons to the gangs, and make them kill each other; just confine the killing to the Black neighborhood, don’t let it spill over to the White neighborhood. Then, as they kill each other, it will produce “Black flight.” They prepare apartment houses for you in the suburbs, so you move out and the enemy lets the property go down. The banks are in collusion with this. They send some of you to burn the property. Then, as you begin to move out, Whites let the property keep going down. Then, the White developers move in. Imagine the Robert Taylor Homes as a condominium!
They don’t want you there anymore! They want you OUT.
White flight from the cities to the suburbs has left Blacks, Hispanics and poor people in control of the inner cities. But in developing the inner cities, the areas in which most Black people live are the areas most convenient to downtown and the seat of power. So real estate developers want to put condominiums where houses exist now and sell them to Whites who are far removed from the centers of power.
They did this in Washington, D.C. They caused us to kill each other. And when we left, the Whites came in and took over where we once lived, and they made it beautiful! And now we can’t get back in there! They did it here, in the Woodlawn area. They allowed the Blackstone Rangers to come up. They gave us guns and we started killing each other. Our parents left. Now the White people have come and taken back over that area. You are gone now, and you can’t get back! They are going to do this in Stateway Gardens; they are going to do this in the Robert Taylor projects; they are going to keep death and destruction going in the Black community until you run and get out of the city … These efforts by the wickedly wise are designed to create a National Emergency to justify in the public’s mind the use of brutal force to put down this threat to public safety from what is called “gang activity.”
View of a prison officer leading an inmate in handcuffs. Photo:
Edric Wilson, a 47-year-old Black man, was jailed for 18 years without a trial.
He was arrested in 2006 on charges of capital murder and aggravated assault and sent to Harris County Jail in Houston, according to the Houston Chronicle. The murder charge was dropped in August 2024, and Mr. Wilson pleaded guilty to the unrelated aggravated assault charge. He was released on parole in February 2025.
The Houston Chronicle shared that Mr. Wilson is one of about 230 people identified as having been in Harris County Jail for more than two and a half years, along with another 1,350 people who have been behind bars for at least a year.
“Harris County, we’ve been noticing in the past five years that there were an enormous number of complaints about court resets and lengthy pretrial detention. Just reset after reset after reset,” Krishnaveni Gundu, co-founder and executive director of the Texas Jail Project, said to The Final Call.
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A court reset happens when a court postpones or reschedules a hearing or trial. Ms. Gundu believes this usually happens to “coerce people into taking plea deals.” Outside of Mr. Wilson, she knows of one person who has been in jail for over eight years and another for over nine years.
But long jail times are not just a Texas problem. CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization, published an investigation in March 2021 on how 75% of California’s inmates were being held in jail without being convicted or sentenced for a crime.
At least 1,317 people were waiting in county jails for more than three years, and 332 people were waiting longer than five years. One man had been jailed for nearly 12 years.
Most of the defendants held in jail before their trials are Black and Latino, such as in San Francisco, where Black people are 5% of the population but make up half of the unsentenced inmates who were in jail for more than a year, according to the CalMatters story.
“People being held pretrial for hundreds of days is, unfortunately, not that uncommon,” Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative, said to The Final Call. “I’ve heard about it in other places. … I’ve spoken to people about this in Detroit.”
Photo of prisoner behind prison bars. Photo Envato
Jail is supposed to be short-term. In its frequently asked questions, the Bureau of Justice Statistics defines jails as “locally operated short-term facilities that hold inmates awaiting trial, awaiting sentencing, or both, and those sentenced to a term of less than or equal to one year.”
It defines prisons as “longer-term facilities run by the state or federal government typically holding felons and persons with sentences of more than one year.”
From July 2022 to June 2023, people admitted to local jails spent an average of 32 days in custody before release, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2023 inmate report, published in March.
For experts in jail advocacy and pretrial reform, the factors that tie into longer jail time include being unable to post bail, backlogs in the court system, and the lack of social services.
The bail problem
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam have been longtime voices of guidance and warning, including in jail and prison reform.
In “The National Agenda: Public Policy Issues, Analyses, And Programmatic Plan of Action,” which was produced out of the Million Family March in 2000, called and convened by Minister Farrakhan, it outlines the issues related to America’s prison and jail system.
“The disproportionate incarceration of Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and others in the United States is a crisis of mammoth proportions that we must address.
In many places, up to 50 percent of persons from our communities are on probation, parole or jail. Our failure to address this crisis will greatly diminish our family power and voting power,” the agenda notes on page 39 in the chapter titled “Prison Reform.”
Wendy Shang, a senior consultant for research and resources with the Pretrial Justice Institute, shared her concerns about bail affordability.
“In general, I think the issue that we’re concerned about that applies to a lot of people is when people are being held because they can’t afford bail,” Ms. Shang said to The Final Call.
“That is a major cause of people being held for excessive amounts of time, is because we’re not saying that they present a threat; we’re not saying they’re not coming back to court, but they just can’t pull the money together.”
She explained that bail is supposed to be a “mechanism for release,” but instead, “it has gotten turned around where people envision bail as being something that only some people can afford.”
In a report titled “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025,” published on March 11, the Prison Policy Initiative presented data that most people in jail are awaiting trial due to being unable to pay bail.
Race also plays a role. In 2023, Pew researchers found that Black people made up, on average, 12% of their local community populations but 26% of the jail populations.
In 16% of jails, the share of Black people in the jail is at least three times their percentage of the local population, and in 29% of jails, the share of Black people is at least four times their population percentage of the community, according to a study by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization, published an investigation in March 2021, about California’s inmates were being held in jail without being convicted or sentenced for a crime. Graphic: calmatters.org
In addition, as of 2022, Black people were admitted to jail at more than four times the rate of White people and stayed in jail for 12 more days, or about two weeks more, on average.
Other studies show that Black men are less likely to get a non-financial form of bail.
“There are different kinds of ways people can be released from jail. The one we’re most familiar with is the court sets a bond, and the person eventually posts the bond. But there are non-financial forms of release.
There’s something called release on recognizance, where you just sign a piece of paper saying you’ll come back to court. Or sometimes they’ll have something like, if you don’t come back to court, then you owe a certain amount of money,” Ms. Shang said. “Black men are much less likely to get non-financial forms of bail. They are more likely to get higher bond demands.”
She called it a snowball effect: an already higher contact with police plus higher bond demands equals more Black men in jail; being less likely to get out of jail leads to being more likely to get a sentence of incarceration.
Ms. Shang also described the harmful effects jail can have on individuals and their families. Individuals face the possibility of losing their jobs, homes and cars. In addition, their children are now having an adverse childhood experience, which can put them at risk for future physical and mental health issues.
Ms. Bertram pointed to cases being pushed back by courts as another reason for lengthy jail stays. “That’s often because courts have too many cases to manage or are not managing their cases efficiently,” she said. One of the other reasons for the court backlog is people missing court, she added, which leads to the creation of new hearings.
She listed several solutions to help: one, having policies that help people attend their court hearings on time, as most people do not miss court on purpose, including better reminder systems; two, having built-in services such as childcare and three, releasing people from custody before they go to trial as often as possible.
“Perhaps you have people who are in jail who, truly, the seriousness of their offense means they really need to be there, but there are also people who are sitting in jail pretrial with charges that are not even that serious,” she said.
One further solution she named is eliminating cash bail. Illinois was the first state to do so, with pretrial detention depending on the seriousness of the charges, she added.
“It could be that the solution to Harris County’s problems is very simple, and it’s just to release more people,” Ms. Bertram said.
Social services failures
As Mr. Wilson languished in jail for nearly two decades, he was also in and out of state mental hospitals, according to the Houston Chronicle. He was believed to be “incompetent to stand trial” and forced to go in and out of hospitals attempting to restore his competency despite arguing there was nothing wrong with him.
While there is still debate on whether Mr. Wilson was competent enough to stand trial, Ms. Gundu blamed part of the jail problem on the criminalization of mental illness. She described Texas’ county jail system as “the largest warehouse of people with mental illness in the state.
“And the reason that has happened is because the state has completely dropped the ball on building out a continuum of care in the community for mental health care,” she said. “We’ve just left them to the streets and the jails, because jails have become the easy button.”
Most defendants held in jail before their trials are Black and Latino, such as in San Francisco, where Black people are 5% of the population but make up half of the unsentenced inmates who were in jail for more than a year. According to CalMatters,
While only about 18% of the general population has a mental illness, an estimated 44% of those in jail have a mental illness, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. About 11% of 18–25-year-olds and 6% of those over 25 have a substance use disorder, but 63% of people in jail have a substance use disorder.
“People with these disorders have challenges in getting appropriate treatment and often incarceration exacerbates their symptoms. This can lead to individuals staying incarcerated longer than those without behavioral health concerns,” according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
“Because we’ve criminalized them for the mental illness and disability, then they sit there waiting for competency restoration,” Ms. Gundu said. “Competency restoration is not mental health care.
We just send them to the state hospital, or we have a jail-based competency restoration and we try to stabilize them so we can punish them for their disability. And all these different factors have led to the really long stays you’re seeing in the jail.”
Reforming the system
For Ms. Gundu, the change and reform of America’s jail system starts with building mental health care places that invite people in, where people can live with dignity and purpose.
“If we actually build healthy communities, the need for jails would be obsolete. You wouldn’t need such big jails,” she said. She believes fewer people would be touched by the criminal legal system if people had equitable access to health care, affordable housing and economic opportunities.
“People are more prone to incarceration when their basic needs are not being met—housing, healthcare, jobs, food. If that’s not being met, then they’re more vulnerable to incarceration.
And then once they have been incarcerated, they are even more vulnerable to future incarceration,” she said. “It’s such a vicious cycle, which is why we keep talking about front-end preventive investments.”
Ms. Shang believes in pretrial reform as a temporary solution for those currently in the system, but she also thinks a larger conversation needs to be had about what actually creates safety.
“Do we want people to be permanently affected by their experiences in jail?” she questioned. “We just really need to be thinking bigger about why we have mass incarceration. Why other countries, other developed countries, use jails at a much lower rate than we do and people are safe?
“We have this idea that jails create safety, and what the data is telling us is that it does the exact opposite,” she said. “How do we think better around that?”
The National Agenda offers additional insight and solutions. On page 39, it states: “Too often we allow our incarcerated sisters and brothers to be forgotten and disconnected from the community.
As we work to raise the cultural and political consciousness of our families in public housing and ghettos, and in the suburbs and upscale areas, we must also work to raise the cultural and political consciousness of our family members in the jail cells and chain gangs, and in the solitary wings and death rows.
“Federal, state, and local governments consign many of us to a life of prison numbers, overcrowded cells, parole hearings and disenfranchisement by planning to imprison us rather than planning to educate us.”
The National Agenda offers several recommendations, including:
Provide incarcerated persons with an avenue for community participation and support;
Raise the cultural and political consciousness of the incarcerated;
Prevent incarcerated inmates from being abused or lost in the system, as a result of their own actions or as a result of government neglect or misconduct;
Monitor the general treatment and parole status of those incarcerated from our communities.
More must be done to ensure people who endure unjust and unnecessary lengthy jail stays are not abandoned or forgotten.
