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Of all the things a man accused of inciting genocide could smuggle into a jail cell, a computer modem would seem low on the list. Yet that’s what UN officials seized from Hassan Ngeze, who ran a Web site from prison he used to denounce the international judges hearing his case.

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Ngeze was the editor of the Rwandan newspaper which published the Hutu Ten Commandments, a document that encouraged massive violence against the Tutsis, reports the GUARDIAN (UK). He has legal access to a telephone, fax, and personal computer in jail, which he has been using to attack the international court over the Internet. The Web site — with long defamations of the judges and photographs of Ngeze working out inside the prison — is registered under his name, but the UN has been unable to shut it down because it’s monitored by an outside supporter.

Ngeze has refused to attend his trial, alleging the judges are conspiring against him with the support of the Tutsi-led Rwandan government, and that the prosecution witnesses are lying.

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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