Category Archives: human rights

Video: Off-Duty Cop Pulls Gun On Bike Messengers In Road Rage Standoff: Gothamist {Breaking WTF News! :(}

An off-duty cop pulled a gun on bike messengers in Greenwich Village yesterday afternoon. According to the messengers, the incident on West 10th Street near Greenwich Avenue began when the officer pulled his car into a bike lane. “My friend kind of screamed at him as he’s riding off,” Aaron Lawrence, who shot video of the confrontation and uploaded it to Facebook, told the Daily News. “He stops his car, and he’s getting out of the car. As soon as he gets out of the car, I see a gun in his hand.” Without identifying himself, the gun-wielding motorist commanded, “Get on the floor, get on the floor!” Lawrence said. Video of the encounter shows a man in shorts and a T-shirt pointing a silver revolver as the four bike messengers object. “Put that away. Put that away. You on camera! I have you on camera, bro!” Lawrence yells. “You almost fucking hit me!” “I didn’t hit you,” the driver says. Lowering his gun he waves the cyclists off, and momentarily turns away. “You pulled into a fucking bike lane!” Lawrence yells. With the gun pointing in his friends’ direction again, he yells, “I have no weapon! I have no weapon!” The cyclists demand to see the man’s badge—it’s unclear from the video if he states he is a police officer at this point, and he retreats into the restaurant Rosemary’s. A man, apparently Dejaune Jones, grows more heated, yelling, “Show me your fucking badge!” and follows the officer, taking off his backpack. Just before the video ends, the man who uploaded the video to Facebook, Aaron Lawrence, seems to try to convince Jones to let it go, saying, “Yo, De, we off this.”

Source: Video: Off-Duty Cop Pulls Gun On Bike Messengers In Road Rage Standoff: Gothamist

Video: Tearful Lady Gaga Calls Orlando Shooting ‘An Attack On Humanity Itself’: LAist

Lady Gaga told the crowd gathered: “I can’t help but feel that this level of hatred, like all prejudicial crimes, this is an attack on humanity itself. This is an attack on everyone. “Tonight I gather humbly with you as a human being in peace and sincerity, in commitment and solidarity, to take a real moment and mourn the tragic loss of these innocent, beautiful people. Let’s all today pledge an allegiance of love to them and to their families who are suffering so deeply.” “But tonight I will not allow my anger and outrage over this attack to overshadow our need to honor those who are grieving truly for their lost ones. Lost members of the LGBT community. I hope you know that myself and so many are your allies. Not only me, but everyone here. We represent the compassion and the loyalty of millions of people that believe in you. You are not alone. You are not alone. “Tomorrow I hope that we all race thoughtfully and loudly toward solutions. But tonight and right now, Orlando we are united with you. And we are here to remember.”

Source: Video: Tearful Lady Gaga Calls Orlando Shooting ‘An Attack On Humanity Itself’: LAist

Mother Of 11 Killed In Orlando Shooting 

“Brenda saw [gunman Omar Mateen] point the gun. She said, ‘Get down,’ to Isaiah and she got in front of him. She was shot dead. That’s how much she loved her kids. If it weren’t for her, he’d [have] been shot,” Pressley told the NY Daily News. Henderson was separated from his mother during the ensuing terror and was later rescued by police. McCool’s eldest daughter, Khalisha Pressley, told NBC News that Henderson feels at fault for his mother’s death. “He had to watch his mother die. He saw everybody getting killed,” she said. “He feels it was his fault.”

Source: Mother Of 11 Killed In Orlando Shooting Once Lived In California: LAist

Justice minister wants to end toleration of polygamy – The Local {all well and in accord with German law}

“No one who comes here has the right to place their cultural entrenchment or religious thinking over our laws,” Maas told Bild newspaper. “Therefore no multiple marriages will be allowed to be recognized in Germany.” In Germany, marrying another person after you are already married is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. However, immigrants who arrive in Germany after already marrying multiple people in their home countries may be tolerated by legal authorities in practice, depending on what’s best for the family, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. If a husband dies, for example, courts may decide to divide the man’s pension between his wives, the newspaper wrote. Additionally, Muslim couples living in Germany sometimes do not have civil marriages, but rather are married only in Islamic religious ceremonies, thus making it easier to have several wives who are not legally recognized, according to Spiegel. Spiegel reported in 2012 that an estimated 30 percent of “Arab-born” men in Berlin actually had two wives. But Maas said he now wants to end this practice of officially tolerating polygamous situations. “Everyone must abide by rules and laws, whether they grew up here or are new,” the minister continued. “The law is equal for all.” German officials have also been considering how to impose stricter regulations for refugee and immigrants who arrive in Germany with an underage child bride.

Source: Justice minister wants to end toleration of polygamy – The Local

Pablo Iglesias: “After I am prime minister, I’ll walk away from politics”

Pablo Iglesias’ office, located on Madrid’s Princesa street, seems more suited to an administrative assistant than to the secretary general of Podemos, Spain’s second party according to the latest opinion polls. It is unclear whether he’s just moved in – it’s almost as though the provisional look of this place were an allegory for his own political situation. Iglesias is a leader in a state of flux who heads a party of morphing ideology.<a href=”http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/06/14/inenglish/1465897947_663542.html

Source: Pablo Iglesias: “After I am prime minister, I’ll walk away from politics”

A Brief History of Attacks at Gay and Lesbian Bars – The New York Times

{Wade through the spin and make-believe – the murderer who wanted to kill gay people and die in a blaze of delusional glory could have committed the same murders in a straight bar on the same night. He chose a gay bar.}

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is no stranger to violence.

From the 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City that set off riots and helped touch off the modern gay-rights movement to the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard to near-epidemic levels of violence against transgender women, the community has been marked by flashes of trauma. After the massacre at a gay club in Orlando, Fla., that left 49 dead and 53 others injured, Richard Kim, the executive editor of The Nation, wrote on Sunday that gay bars and clubs have often been sanctuaries. And sometimes those sanctuaries have come under siege. Here are a few significant examples.

  • New Orleans, 1973 Thirty-two people died when a fire swept through the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in the French Quarter, on June 24, 1973. After the blaze, some churches refused to bury the victims. The arsonist was never caught.

Source: A Brief History of Attacks at Gay and Lesbian Bars – The New York Times

Violence and Contradictions on the Path to a Gay Nightclub – The New York Times

“Why did he do this?” his father asked. “He was born in America. He went to school in America. He went to college — why did he do that?” “I am as puzzled as you are.”

Source: Violence and Contradictions on the Path to a Gay Nightclub – The New York Times

Homophobia and a “desire” to go out in blaze of delusionary “glory” makes more sense than the arguments above. Very similar to Timothy McVeigh of Oklahoma City infamy!

Georgia Senator prays for Obama’s death – in public

Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. This sort of behaviour is UNACCEPTABLE from anyone, much less a United States Senator.  Perdue should be censured by the Senate for this despicable behavior. These so-called “patriots” are nothing but ignorant racist morons.

Source: Georgia Senator prays for Obama’s death – in public

Netanyahu’s paper uses Orlando massacre to demonize Israel’s Arab citizens | +972 Magazine

The context: The photos were used to illustrate an article by Israel Hayom columnist Boaz Bismuth — known for his ties to Sheldon Adelson and support for Donald Trump — who writes about the Orlando attack as proof that Obama cannot contend with Islamic terrorism let alone recognize it. The schadenfreude is hard to miss: Another Islamist terrorist attack in Barack Obama’s America — the same America that decided to wipe the term “Islamist terrorism” from its lexicon. Alas, the terrorists are doing Obama’s job for him. How embarrassing. Bismuth refers to Israel only in passing when he writes about last week’s attack by Palestinian gunmen, which left four Israelis dead in a central Tel Aviv restaurant: This is a toilsome war that could last decades. Who knows this better than Israelis? Just a few days ago, in the middle of a popular city market in Tel Aviv, four Israelis were murdered. Yesterday it was 50 Americans. That’s 54 people who wanted to go out and live life, not have their lives cut short. According to Bismuth, Israel and the United States are fighting a common enemy. The only difference is that unlike “Obama’s America,” Israel is not bogged down by nuisances such as political correctness. Unlike our liberal friends in the United States, we have no issues speaking openly about the problem, and know exactly what it takes to deal with it.

Source: Netanyahu’s paper uses Orlando massacre to demonize Israel’s Arab citizens | +972 Magazine

Israel spin doctors move to exploit Orlando massacre | The Electronic Intifada

Similarly, Israel Hayom, the pro-Netanyahu newspaper owned by casino billionaire, Republican financier and anti-Palestinian donor Sheldon Adelson, ran photos of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen alongside Neshat Melhem, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who killed three Israelis on New Year’s Day, with the slogan, “A chilling similarity.” But as +972 Magazine noted, the only similarity is that the men had shaved heads and glasses, and that they came from Muslim backgrounds. Israel Hayom pointedly did not mention what +972 Magazine called “the more obvious parallel – between Mateen and Yishai Schlissel, who attacked the Jerusalem Pride Parade in June 2015 and murdered a teenage girl with a knife.” Schlissel, a Jewish extremist, had served time in prison for a similar attack a decade earlier.

Source: Israel spin doctors move to exploit Orlando massacre | The Electronic Intifada