Category Archives: Fundamentalist terror

Kansas man indicted on hate crime charges for killing Indian national | US news | The Guardian

A man accused in a bar shooting in suburban Kansas City that left one Indian national dead and another wounded was indicted by a federal grand jury on hate crime charges, the US justice department announced Friday. The indictment against Adam Purinton, 52, comes after a 22 February shooting at Austin’s Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas. Witnesses have said Purinton, who is white, yelled “get out of my country” at two 32-year-old Indian nationals, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani, before he began shooting. Kuchibhotla died and Madasani was injured. A third man, Ian Grillot, was wounded when he tried to intervene.The shooting raised fears of more attacks on immigrants following Donald Trump’s election and his push for a ban on immigrants from some countries. Officials in India also expressed concern about their citizens’ safety in the US, where many work.An affidavit released in March said Madasani told detectives that the gunman asked if their “status was legal” before he opened fire.

Source: Kansas man indicted on hate crime charges for killing Indian national | US news | The Guardian

When Did Running for Office Become So Dangerous? | Dame Magazine

the 12th (death threat), well, that’s the one that changes your life; it’s the picture of your home or your office, it’s the one with white powder in the envelope, it’s the one that mentions the hair color of your teenage daughter, or with screencaps of your teenage son’s Snapchats. It comes from a person who is really committed to fucking with you, the kind of crazy person you imagined was behind the first threat you ever received, it’s the one that makes the jaw of the cop who responds to your freaked-out call tighten as he tried to keep his poker face but you can tell he’s worried. It’s the one that makes you take an unscheduled vacation, or break your lease, or drop out of your political race or stop writing on the internet for a while; it’s the one that makes you question whether you should’ve been so sanguine about numbers one through 11, because maybe they’re more realistic than they sounded at the time.They’re the kind of threats that upend the basis of our democracy and our society, by silencing and scaring away and driving out everyone but  the people who would never be silent or scared, no matter how realistic the risk—and, goodness knows, having rational actors who think through risk and reward is reasonably important in government—and by driving out the people more likely to receive the more serious threats. They’re the kind of threats that true public servants, even those who benefit, ought to condemn and discourage, not dismiss and ignore.Or else, you’re essentially guaranteeing that there will be more. And, with 2018 coming, there probably will be.

Source: When Did Running for Office Become So Dangerous? | Dame Magazine

Noose found at African American history museum in D.C. | Reuters

“The noose has long represented a deplorable act of cowardice and depravity — a symbol of extreme violence for African Americans,” Director Lonnie Bunch said in an email to museum staff sent to Reuters by a museum spokeswoman.Bunch said museum officials do not know who was responsible and told staff the incident “is a stark reminder why the work you do is so important.”A U.S. Park Police spokeswoman confirmed the agency was investigating but declined to provide any further details.The incident comes less than a week after a noose was found hanging from a tree outside the nearby Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian.com, an affiliated news organization, said.

Source: Noose found at African American history museum in D.C. | Reuters

Hindu locality: Haridwar girl says attacked with acid because of her faith | Dehradun News – Times of India

A 20-year-old postgraduate student of a city college sustained severe burn injuries after two motorcycle-borne men threw acid at her at Lal Pul near Jawalapur in Haridwar on Monday morning. The girl, who belongs to the Muslim community, alleged that she was attacked because the men wanted her family to leave the locality they were staying in — a predominantly Hindu area of about 200 houses in which the girl’s family are the only Muslims.The girl, who is currently admitted in a government hospital, told TOI that one of her attackers, who has been identified as Sudhir Singh Tomar, a 45-year-old retired Army jawan, had also entered her house on May 25 at about 11pm when her parents were not at home. She alleged that he had threatened her with a pistol and sexually assaulted her, saying that her family should leave the colony as they were Muslims. She repeated the allegations in front of the local cops and the next day she, along with her mother, filed a police complaint.

Source: Hindu locality: Haridwar girl says attacked with acid because of her faith | Dehradun News – Times of India

U.S. Jewish activist to undergo surgery on arm broken by Israeli cops | +972 Magazine

Wednesday’s protest against Jerusalem Day, a highly-charged, intensely nationalistic and consistently violent affair, came as well over 100 American Jews are in Israel-Palestine participating in anti-occupation activism. The “Sumud Freedom Camp,” a Standing Rock-inspired protest encampment set up by Palestinians, Israelis and diaspora Jews, is currently in its ninth day, having already been dismantled twice by the Israeli army.Police and army violence is near-automatic in response to demonstrations by Palestinians, Ethiopian Israelis, and Israeli photojournalists and anti-occupation activists who attend protests in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The presence of diaspora Jews has traditionally stayed the authorities’ hand, but as Jews from around the world head to Israel-Palestine in order to step up their nonviolent activism against the occupation, it seems that the authorities are responding in kind.

Source: U.S. Jewish activist to undergo surgery on arm broken by Israeli cops | +972 Magazine

Trump full of praise for Duterte’s brutal drugs crackdown, leaked call reveals | US news | The Guardian

“I just want to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump said in the phone call, according to the transcript. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing, and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”Duterte responded that drugs were a “scourge” of his nation. Trump then added: “I think we had a previous president who did not understand that.”

Source: Trump full of praise for Duterte’s brutal drugs crackdown, leaked call reveals | US news | The Guardian

Congressman Al Green Threatened With LYNCHING After Calling For Trump’s Impeachment | 3CHICSPOLITICO

U.S. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) received voicemails threatening to lynch him and calling him racial slurs after he called for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, he said Saturday.Green, who is black, played the recordings for about 100 attendees at a town hall in Houston, according to the Houston Chronicle. They include death threats, racial epithets and graphic language.“Hey Al Green, we’ve got an impeachment for you. It’s going to be yours,” one caller said. “It’s actually going to give you a short trial before we hang your nigger ass.”“We’ll lynch all you fuckin’ niggers,” another caller said. “You’ll be hanging from a tree.”

Source: Congressman Al Green Threatened With LYNCHING After Calling For Trump’s Impeachment | 3CHICSPOLITICO

The GOP Doesn’t Think My Son’s Life Is Worth Living | Dame Magazine

We don’t say this in polite society, but our society isn’t polite anymore, so I will spell it out: Our culture has long been riven with the idea that people with disabilities lead such miserable lives that their lives aren’t worth living. You hear this when people say, “If that happened to me, I’d kill myself.” The notion springs from being afraid of what you don’t know. If you happen to be young and able-bodied, for instance, the idea of being old and crippled frightens you and you can’t imagine that you could possibly be happy in that state. Conversely, if you happen to be able-bodied and healthy now, but are not particularly enjoying the experience, you may comfort yourself by thinking that at least you’re better off than the disabled.But perhaps you aren’t. Perhaps you and the disabled have more in common than you think. I cannot speak for everyone officially classified as disabled, for they constitute 20 percent of the population, and are as heterogeneous and complicated a group as you could wish for. But I can speak for my son: There are times when his misery is agonizing and explosive, and there are times when his joy lights up the whole neighborhood. The power of his emotions is such that he seems to be both happier and more miserable than most people I know. Surely, he is as complex and vast.This fear we have, of losing what we have now—our memory, our ease of movement, our health—can make us push the inevitable away to such an extent that we start believing that misfortune or simple decay only happens to other people, people who have not said their prayers, or exercised daily, or popped the right multivitamin. We “other” the sick, the disabled, the old. In so doing, we divide ourselves into us and them, “us” being the somewhat fit, “them” being all of those people with oppressive medical bills and annoying demands.The most recent example of this sort of thinking pops up in Alabama Representative Mo Brooks’s defense of the AHCA. In a comment to CNN, the Congressman commends Trump’s proposed bill for allowing “insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”In other words: “We,” the virtuous diet-abiders and Fitbitters, are unfairly saddled with the costs of “them”—those slobs who didn’t take care of their health. I’d love to see our nation’s fast-food chains go up in a purple cloud of smoke and for fresh nutritious lunches to be given out freely at schools, to every child, including those whose parents do not have decent jobs and cannot pay. I’d love to see more jogging and jump-roping and dancing in the streets. I believe that movement is good for the body and soul, as is stillness. But to imagine that we wield ultimate control over our health is a form of modern madness.

Source: The GOP Doesn’t Think My Son’s Life Is Worth Living | Dame Magazine

‘I could have died’: how Erdoğan’s bodyguards turned protest into brawl | World news | The Guardian

Dersimi, 61, saw one of these men grab a woman around the neck and start punching her in the face. As he moved to help her, he was attacked by three to four men, who pushed him down then kicked him repeatedly.“I couldn’t get up, I tried to cover my head with my arms, I don’t know how long they were kicking me,” Dersimi said. “Then I get up and I’m bleeding”.Footage from Tuesday’s protest shows extraordinary scenes of violence in the Washington sunshine. The attackers – who included embers of Erdoğan’s security detail – run amock, beating and kicking protesters.

Source: ‘I could have died’: how Erdoğan’s bodyguards turned protest into brawl | World news | The Guardian