Category Archives: Gun-violence

Egypt police kill members of gang linked to Regeni murder – The Local

The interior ministry said in a statement that it has shared its findings with Italy, which was helping investigate the abduction and murder of the Cambridge University graduate whose mutilated body was found in Cairo in January. The ministry also released photographs of Regeni’s passport, university identification cards and a wallet. The manner of Regeni’s abduction and killing provoked accusations in Italy of Egyptian police involvement, something Cairo had strongly denied. Regeni, 28, had been researching labour movements in Egypt, a sensitive topic, and had written articles critical of the government under a pen name. The incident threatened relations between Egypt and Italy, a strong supporter of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi whose security services have been accused of abusing dissidents. The ministry had announced earlier on Thursday that police had killed four members of a criminal gang that had kidnapped and robbed foreigners in Cairo in a shootout, without mentioning Regeni.

Source: Egypt police kill members of gang linked to Regeni murder – The Local

DN: Brussels suspects had ties to dead Algerian resident – Radio Sweden | Sveriges Radio

The three men who have been named as suspects behind the attacks in Belgian were connected with the 35-year-old man who is believed to have been registered in Sweden for several years and who was shot to death last week in a raid outside Brussels, reports Dagens Nyheter. The man, a 35-year-old Algerian national, was shot by a Belgian police sniper after he holed himself up in an apartment in the Forest neighborhood of Brussels. Authorities zeroed in on the man during their four-month-old hunt for suspects linked to the November 13 Paris terror attacks. Dagens Nyheter is reporting that Belgium’s public TV service, RTBF, said the apartment was rented by one of the brothers who are now also suspected in Tuesday’s blasts. Two months before the attacks in Paris the 35-year-old Algerian was also stopped at a road check between Austria and Hungary with the Moroccan national who is considered the mastermind behind the attacks. The second brother, also a suspect in yesterday’s blasts, was also in the vehicle.

Source: DN: Brussels suspects had ties to dead Algerian resident – Radio Sweden | Sveriges Radio

For These Syrian Women, Their 20s Have Been Defined by War · Global Voices

Now, Syrians account for a quarter of Lebanon’s population, and providing them all with aid has become impossible; food vouchers have been reduced and rent assistance slashed. As a result, many are seeking to move abroad. “I cannot imagine a future here in Lebanon,” Hassan says. “Five years ago, I was in Syria. Now I’m in Lebanon, even my siblings, two of them … travelled to foreign countries. No, I don’t imagine that in two years I will be here in Lebanon.” She pauses before adding, “I don’t intend to go back to Syria, either, even if things get better. That hatred of the people who killed someone, it will always be around you.” For Marwa, a 24-year-old stay-at-home mom from Damascus, adjusting to her new reality took years. “You see this view?” she asks, pointing at the scenic landscape outside her window. “It took me three years to realize how pretty it was. As refugees, we had other concerns.” Marwa came to Lebanon along with tens of thousands of others in late 2012, when the war in Syria was spiralling out of control and swaths of the major cities were becoming no-go zones. As new refugees, she moved with her family from village to village, desperately looking for work for her husband and a school that would accept their two young children. When they eventually settled in a small village in Mount Lebanon, they also had to deal with widespread suspicion and mistrust from a population growing increasingly weary of playing host. These days, locals have become accustomed to the extra residents, but while time has improved community relations, it has not been kind to the guests’ finances. “My neighbor is going back to Syria,” Marwa explains. “Even though there’s a lot of suffering there, she’s in too much debt here. My husband is thinking the same because he’s paid so little at work and can’t take it anymore.” She throws her hands in the air and says, “I tell him ‘You can go back, but I’m not going with you. What did our children do to deserve living in the middle of a war?’ “

Source: For These Syrian Women, Their 20s Have Been Defined by War · Global Voices

Americas MexicoBlog: Nestora is Finally Free

Following her release, Salgado appeared at a press conference hosted by the Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Center in Mexico City. The newly-released prisoner urged freedom for other jailed CRAC members and “500 political prisoners,” criticized media manipulation and educational policies, backed the movement for the 43 Ayotzinapa students, and demanded respect for Mexico’s original peoples. “I only want to tell Mr. Pena Nieto to respect our peoples and our community police, because we have shown that we don’t defend delinquents,” Salgado said. “I ask for support for our indigenous peoples and respect for their rights, and that so much injustice not be permitted.” Nestora Salgado is expected to return to the United States for medical treatment.

Source: Americas MexicoBlog: Nestora is Finally Free

Disappearances in Sri Lanka & Role of Civil Society | Groundviews

I remember that on this day, exactly two years ago, I was in detention at the Terrorism Investigation Division with another friend, Fr. Praveen. The nearest trigger for our arrest appeared to have been our efforts to look into the arrest of a mother of a disappeared child, Balendran Jeyakumary (who was also a vocal campaigner seeking truth and justice for disappearances) and other Tamils in the North. More than a year after “good governance”, Jeyakumary. Fr. Praveen and me are still being investigated under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Ironically, at the same time, I have been invited for various meetings of the government and to be part of an Expert Advisory Committee related to Transitional Justice (which I didn’t accept due to various other reasons), despite still being a “terrorist suspect” and having a court order restricting my freedom of expression. Although Jeyakumary was conditionally released two months after President Sirisena took office, she was re-arrested last year under “good governance”. She also faces serious social isolation due to this and struggles to find livelihood and has been compelled to keep her young daughter in a hostel. There has been no news about her disappeared son, who she claims has appeared in a photo taken at a government rehabilitation facility. We are also no closer to the truth or justice in relation to the disappearance of Lalith and Kugan, two campaigners against disappearances, who disappeared in Jaffna in December 2011. Families of disappeared and activists don’t face the kind of attacks, threats, intimidations, discrediting etc. that we experienced under the Rajapakse regime. But monitoring of families of disappeared persons and activists in the North and East continues. And there is total impunity for the reprisals we faced in the past.

Source: Disappearances in Sri Lanka & Role of Civil Society | Groundviews

Donald Trump: I love this country. We’re going to make our country great again.It’s payback time! It’s payback time! | 3CHICSPOLITICO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNelSuoHzlI

Donald Trump is a dangerous racist sob. How can he be allowed to continue his campaign? It’s payback time? Who is he going to pay back? And for what? The country electing a black Potus? This is scary. It will not end well.

Source: Donald Trump: I love this country. We’re going to make our country great again.It’s payback time! It’s payback time! | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Video: Donald Trump Encourages Violent Supporters & Vows To Ruin Protesters’ Lives: Gothamist

And because doubling down is something Trump is good at, he further encouraged the violent rhetoric with a tweet threat directed at Bernie Sanders this morning (see below). Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” he denied it was a threat, and instead deployed double-speak to argue that he “should get credit, not be scorned” for how he’s handled these “disruptions” from his enemies. In response to all that, Sanders told Tapper that his campaign “had nothing to do” with what happened in Chicago. “Even his Republican colleagues make this point: His language, his intonation, when he talks about carrying people out in stretchers…this is a man who keeps implying violence, and then you end up getting what you seek,” he said.

Source: Video: Donald Trump Encourages Violent Supporters & Vows To Ruin Protesters’ Lives: Gothamist

A Texas Candidate Pushes the Boundary of the Far Right – The New York Times

Ms. Bruner’s anti-Obama, anti-Islam, anti-evolution and anti-gay Facebook posts have generated national headlines and turned an obscure school board election into a glimpse of the outer limits of Texas politics. In a part of the state dominated by conservative Christians and Tea Party activists, Ms. Bruner’s candidacy has posed a question no one can answer with any certainty — how far to the fringe is too far for Texas Republicans? Ms. Bruner was a relative political newcomer when she started her campaign to represent a 31-county section of northern East Texas on the 15-member board that sets curriculum standards, reviews and adopts textbooks, and establishes graduation requirements in Texas public schools. Because of the board’s clout in selecting textbooks for all of the state’s schools, it can influence the content of textbooks produced nationwide. Here in Ms. Bruner’s hometown, Mineola, and elsewhere in intensely conservative East Texas, her views fit a widely accepted anti-Obama and conspiracy friendly antigovernment mind-set. Inside Kitchens Hardware and Deli, the combination hardware store and diner where Mr. Clark was eating, a sign on a shelf read, “Hillary for Prison 2016.” A woman in a nearby store who declined to give her name said she would not hold Ms. Bruner’s Facebook posts against her, and spoke at length about her belief that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was a government-staged hoax.

Source: A Texas Candidate Pushes the Boundary of the Far Right – The New York Times

Mr. President, Its outright Racism. | Groundviews

The government of Sri Lanka needs to safeguard the interests, cultural and religious practices of the Muslims that do not contravene with the constitution or the laws of the country. Failure to do so would be an injustice to a community that has stood by the Sri Lankan State throughout history, contributing to the economy and prosperity of all Sri Lankans. Let us unite in defending the rights of every citizen in this nation of ours and not be misled by the racist agenda of a few.

Source: Mr. President, Its outright Racism. | Groundviews