Category Archives: Fail!

BMJ study: US police hospitalized 54,000 people in 2012 | Americas | DW.COM | 26.07.2016

One of the more challenging aspects of the research, Miller said, is how little official documentation of police violence can be found in law enforcement databases and how often police involvement in injuries is left out of medical records.”The surprise that had dropped on all of us around the time of starting this was that the data sets that I’ve worked with since I came into the field of injury, from the vital statistics on the number of people killed in the United States and the intent of those deaths, that the coroners and medical examiners were failing to code police involvement in almost half of the police-involved deaths,” Miller said. “And there are two separate reporting systems that the police are supposed to report police-involved deaths to – and both of those had even worse underreporting.””When you correct those firearm accounts, what you find is that one in every 13 people who died because someone else fired a firearm the police pulled the trigger,” he added. “A police officer pulled the trigger. And that’s scary.”

Source: BMJ study: US police hospitalized 54,000 people in 2012 | Americas | DW.COM | 26.07.2016

License to Kill: Forgery, evidence tampering and two dead teens | +972 Magazine

Usaid and Muhammed Qadus are shot to death in their own village by a major in the Israeli army who claims he only fired rubber bullets. But the bullets were real, and he admitted to lying and committing forgery to cover up his crime. Instead of being charged with a crime, he is promoted. By John Brown and Noam Rotem (Translated from Hebrew by Ofer Neiman) In the “License to Kill” series thus far, we have surveyed eight Military Police investigation files regarding the killing of Palestinians by IDF fire. Despite the fact that none of those killed posed a danger…

Source: License to Kill: Forgery, evidence tampering and two dead teens | +972 Magazine

British police report over 6,000 hate crimes in month since Brexit vote | News | DW.COM | 22.07.2016

The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) said it had recorded 6,193 incidents of hate crime from mid-June to mid-July, figures obtained from police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.The most commonly reported crimes were harassment, assault and other violence such as verbal abuse or spitting. The second and third most prevalent incidents were public order offences, followed by criminal damage.Since the EU referendum result was declared on June 24, Muslims and Eastern Europeans have said they have been particularly targeted.

Source: British police report over 6,000 hate crimes in month since Brexit vote | News | DW.COM | 22.07.2016

Texas Rape Victim Was Jailed for Fear She Would Not Testify, Lawsuit Says – The New York Times – The last straw in WTF News today!

A rape victim who was jailed in Texas for nearly a month because prosecutors feared she would not return to testify after having a mental breakdown on the stand has sued the Harris County district attorney’s office, county officials and jail employees.The woman, identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit, was held in the general population at the county jail — the same place where the rape suspect, Keith Hendricks, was housed. There, the suit says, she was misclassified as the perpetrator of a sexual assault — not as a victim — attacked by an inmate, denied medication and punched in the face by a guard.

Source: Texas Rape Victim Was Jailed for Fear She Would Not Testify, Lawsuit Says – The New York Times

Purvi Patel has 20-year sentence for inducing own abortion reduced | US news | The Guardian – The world that Trump’s VP candidate is proud of – putting women in jail if they have a stillborn child

Patel’s conviction, in 2015, made her a national symbol in the debate swirling around abortion. Last week, when Donald Trump selected the Indiana governor, Mike Pence, as his partner on the Republican presidential ticket, many abortion rights groups invoked Patel’s name as a cautionary tale. Trump has said women who have illegal abortions ought to face “some form of punishment”. And activists had prevailed upon Pence to clarify the 2009 law used to convict her, without success.The ruling was not a uniform victory for Patel. The court held that the state had mounted sufficient evidence to show Patel knew the infant was born alive. Patel’s appeals team had challenged the integrity of the forensic test, the controversial “lung float test”, that prosecutors used to argue the infant was not stillborn. But the court agreed with Patel that the state did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the infant could have survived. It reduced her child neglect conviction from a class A felony to a class D.“The Indiana court of appeals … ultimately failed Purvi Patel,” Yamani Hernandez, the director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said Friday. “People of color are bearing the brunt of unscientific laws and misplaced moral outrage against abortion, which is blurring into the territory of miscarriage, putting any pregnant person at risk of prosecution and incarceration. It needs to stop, and the decision didn’t go far enough to restore full justice for Purvi Patel.”AdvertisementA jury convicted Patel in 2015, and in May of this year, a team of volunteer attorneys appealed against her conviction.Prosecutors argued at trial that Patel gave birth to a 25-week-old live infant that could have survived if Patel had sought medical attention instead of abandoning the infant. Patel’s attorneys, who disputed the infant’s gestational age, argued the infant was stillborn, and not developed enough to survive outside the womb no matter what Patel did.Patel’s case quickly became a flashpoint in the country’s heated debate over abortion access. The prosecution painted Patel as hard-hearted and calculating. Women’s rights advocates countered that Indiana’s numerous restrictions on abortion had prevented Patel from terminating her pregnancy in a clinic, and they fingered her trial as part of a pattern of overzealous prosecutions against women who suffer miscarriages.

Source: Purvi Patel has 20-year sentence for inducing own abortion reduced | US news | The Guardian

Thousands of women unknowingly have intrusive photos shared on Twitter | Technology | The Guardian

Thousands of women have had intrusive photographs, taken of themselves without their knowledge, circulated on Twitter for years.Covert photos taken of women on beaches, public transport and elsewhere have been shared to two hashtags for several years with apparent impunity.The images predominately focus on the women’s breasts and buttocks, but in many, their faces are visible. Some appear to be underage.Guardian Australia has chosen not to name the hashtags so as not to compound the violation of the women’s privacy.

Source: Thousands of women unknowingly have intrusive photos shared on Twitter | Technology | The Guardian

Attacks on Dalits leave Gujarat government wounded – Times of India

Initiating the discussion, senior JD(U) member Sharad Yadav sought a ban on ‘gau rakshaks’ (cow vigilantes) operating in some parts of the country . He said it was a matter of shame that even after 70 years of Independence, atrocities against Dalits, especially women, were increasing.”Who created these ‘gau rakshaks? Why doesn’t the government ban them? What is this tamasha? We talk about Taliban … our caste system has a Taliban-like attitude, we need to discuss that,” he said. Congress and other members joined him, saying the incident only exposes the real face of the `Gujarat model’ promoted by PM Narendra Modi. Observing that youths were joining such groups because of rising unemployment, Yadav said that “in Gujarat, these gau rakshaks say 33 crore gods and goddesses live in the cow. Such superstitions are being spread in this country.”

Source: Attacks on Dalits leave Gujarat government wounded – Times of India

Knesset passes MP-expulsion law | News | DW.COM | 20.07.2016

A spokeswoman for the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, Debbie Gilad-Hayo, described the new law as “one of the most serious legislative proposals in recent years.”It harmed the “very building blocks” of democracy, including freedom of expression, the right to vote and to be elected and the right to representation, she said.The bill was aimed at Arab lawmakers but it would become a “slippery slope” with the potential to affect all Israelis, she added.Last week, parliament drew criticism from the European Union, when it adopted a law requiring non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive more than half their funding from abroad to provide details about donors’ contributions.Critics claimed that legislation would be used to target left-wing groups.

Source: Knesset passes MP-expulsion law | News | DW.COM | 20.07.2016

Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton are more like a witch trial than politics | Angelina Chapin | Opinion | The Guardian

The tirades against Hillary Clinton at the Republican national convention this week have resembled a witch trial more than a political event.In his speech on Tuesday night, New Jersey governor Chris Christie decided to try “something fun” and indict Hillary Clinton for her crimes. The former prosecutor listed her “offences” one by one – she ruined Libya by overthrowing Gaddafi, she helped empower Boko Haram in Nigeria, she negotiated “the worst nuclear deal in history” – and hyperbolically asked “Guilty or not guilty?” at the end of every accusation. The nauseating spectacle was a hit.The crowd cried “Guilty!” and chanted “Lock her up!” with the fervor of townspeople holding torches, ready to storm the town square and burn Clinton at the stake. At least the Republican speakers were consistent: Ben Carson accused Clinton of devil worship since one of her college mentors, Saul Alinsky, acknowledges Lucifer in his book.Christie’s theatrical performance is not surprising. Both he and Donald Trump are the kind of megalomaniacal, testosterone-fuelled politicians whose rhetoric is more suited for the football field than the political stage (Christie actually ended his speech with “Now let’s go get ’em!”). These kind of men deter women from entering politics, when more females representatives is exactly what America needs.The New Jersey governor didn’t only attack Hillary’s track record as secretary of state, he attacked her personality. He said “She’ll bring all the failure of the Obama years with less charm and more lies” and underlined that America needs a “man who is unafraid … a man who wants to lead us.” In other words, this country needs an alpha male with zero political experience rather than a woman who has dedicated her life to public service instead of catchphrases.In case anyone needs a reminder, Congress is already 80% male. According to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, there will not be gender parity in politics for another century. Of course discrimination has a lot to do with it – white men still symbolize power and competence in American culture – but many women are also turned off by the macho environment that Christie and his ilk perpetuate.Politics is still an alpha male’s game. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich found that women were less likely to apply for jobs that contained words with typically make adjectives such as “assertive” and “aggressive”. Let’s not forget that Donald Trump and Marco Rubio openly talked about penises during a national debate. Then there’s the shouting, bragging and sex scandals that define too many male politicians’ careers. Women who go into politics are also judged more harshly than men. They need to be tough but sensitive, good-looking but not flashy, assertive but demure. No matter what, your haircut will make headlines.

Source: Republican attacks on Hillary Clinton are more like a witch trial than politics | Angelina Chapin | Opinion | The Guardian