Category Archives: human rights

Edward Norton Launches CrowdRise Campaign For Syrian Refugee – Look to the Stars

Earlier this week, Norton was moved to tears upon reading the story of an unnamed man, referred to as “The Scientist” who speaks openly about losing his wife, his home, his personal belongings, and fleeing his village.“I saw the story and was so compelled by it. This man has suffered profound loss that would crush the spirit of many people and yet he still passionately wants a chance to contribute positively to the world. I thought the President’s words were so apt, ’You’re part of what makes America great.’ I wanted to do something to echo that sentiment,” said Norton. “If we don’t welcome people like this into our communities and empower his dream of making an impact with his life, then we’re not the country we tell ourselves we are.”

Source: Edward Norton Launches CrowdRise Campaign For Syrian Refugee – Look to the Stars

The jihadist of the Islamic State behead three well-known imams in Mosul – Fides News Agency

Mosul (Agenzia Fides) – The self-styled Islamic State of jihadists (Daesh) beheaded three well-known Sunni imams in Mosul in the public square accused of not obeying orders that forced them to recruit young people for the Jihad. The three imams, known by the local people for their profile of authentic men of God: Kazim Abdulkarim, Bilal al- Sheikh Agha and Abdullah al-Hayalli, had opposed to the atrocities committed by jihadists in the name of their bloody religious ideology. They were killed on Monday, December 14, in front of dozens of people gathered to witness the beheading. On the same day – report local sources to ARA Kurdish News Agency, also Ashwaq al-Nouaymi was murdered, a professor of Mosul who refused to give his students the teachings included in the new school curriculum imposed by Daesh.Already in June 2014, a few days after having conquered Mosul, jihadists of Daesh had killed many Sunni imams of the city, including the Grand Imam, for refusing to swear allegiance to the Islamic Caliphate. The slaughter of the imam in Mosul was virtually ignored by the Western media. All Christians in the second Iraqi city managed to escape, and their houses were expropriated by jihadists.

Source: The jihadist of the Islamic State behead three well-known imams in Mosul – Fides News Agency

Being an American Has Never Meant Giving Up Who You Are | whitehouse.gov

America is not one creed or color, one dish or accent; it is a collection of people, three hundred million strong, each with their own tales of migration and adaptation. Being an American has never meant giving up who you are to become something else. It means using the sum of your parts to establish communities, build your livelihood, reimagine your identity, and grow your dreams. It means that even though there are imperfections in the immigration experience, they are always eclipsed by the overwhelming sense of possibility that makes our nation great.It also means that an automotive engineer and his wife can proudly pledge their allegiance to this country, and that their daughter, who once looked up at planes in the sky in Karachi, can now look out onto the White House lawn and thank her parents for their pursuit of the American Dream.Asra NajamPresidential Writer

Source: Being an American Has Never Meant Giving Up Who You Are | whitehouse.gov

Yahoo Shareholders Propose Plan To Cut 9,000 Jobs: SFist Greenmail deja vu with little care for people who would be fired to give them more money and power – trash men

Now another activist investor, New York hedge fund SpringOwl, has sent a lengthy 99-slide presentation — or list of demands, really — to Yahoo’s board. In order to save $2 billion a year, they argue, the company should lay off 9,000 employees, reducing staff to 3,000 full-time employees and contractors.

Source: Yahoo Shareholders Propose Plan To Cut 9,000 Jobs: SFist

Garbage Human Martin Shkreli Once Again Plans To Massively Raise Cost Of Lifesaving Drug: SFist

Much reviled pharma guy Martin Shkreli has yet again revealed himself to be operating from a place of questionable morality. The 70 percent owner of South San Francisco-based KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. has announced plans to increase the two-month treatment price of a lifesaving drug from $100 to an estimated $80,000.Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals was in the news earlier this year, when the founder announced he would raise the price of a drug used by AIDS patients to treat parasitic infections from $13.50 to $750 per pill.Tech Times notes that the more recently proposed price increase, announced in an investor conference call last week, would target a drug used to treat Chagas disease, a particular parasitic infection that can be fatal.The two-month course of the drug, benznidazole, is currently available at the cost of $50 to $100 in Latin America, notes the Times, but at present is only available in the United States directly from the Centers for Disease Control (the CDC makes the drug available for free).Shkreli’s move, suggests the New York Times, is part of a larger scheme to acquire a FDA voucher for expediting the review process of another drug. By bringing benznidazole to the US commercial market, albeit at an exorbitant rate, Shkreli would be eligible for a voucher originally intended as a reward to encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for neglected diseases. His company could then sell this voucher (vouchers have sold for as much as $350 million, notes the New York Times) to another pharmaceutical company.“It’s caused a lot of angst in the Chagas community,” says Dr. Sheba Meymandi, the director of a Chagas treatment center. “Everyone’s in an uproar.”It is estimated that 300,000 people in the United States suffer the disease.

Source: Garbage Human Martin Shkreli Once Again Plans To Massively Raise Cost Of Lifesaving Drug: SFist

Documenting Rape in India – The New York Times

In recent years, disturbing and widely publicized accounts of several gang rapes have begun to make the subject of sexual assault somewhat more visible in Indian society. But in her research, Ms. Sharma found that most of her subjects had either been accused of bringing dishonor upon their families or blamed by the police and neighbors for provoking their rapes.“The problem is not how women dress but how women are objectified by a patriarchal and feudalistic mind-set,” she said. “First the father owns them and then a husband owns them. They’re not treated as equals but second-class citizens.”

Source: Documenting Rape in India – The New York Times

Video: Israeli settlers blast “Muhammad is dead” song at Palestinians | The Electronic Intifada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obH84k46g_k

This video shows a group of Israelis from the Kiryat Arba settlement “playing hate songs through a loud speaker to residents of the Hebron neighborhood of Jabal Johar,” according to Israel’s B’Tselem human rights group, which published it last month.The song heard in the video, filmed by Mai Dana on 11 October, includes the repeated refrain “Muhammad is dead” – disparaging the prophet. Its lyrics say:He is no prophetJust another ArabHe has a moustache with fleasAnd he eats goat cheeseHe is a construction laborerEven when he’s fasting on RamadanAnd he has an orange ID cardMuhammad is gay and the son of a prostitute.The video shows many settlers, including young children, laughing, singing and pumping their fists as the music blasts.The song refers to the Israeli-issued ID – which used to come in an orange-colored case – carried by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank which restricts their movements, in contrast to settlers who can go where they please.In other words, the settler song celebrates apartheid.

Source: Video: Israeli settlers blast “Muhammad is dead” song at Palestinians | The Electronic Intifada

Young people vote far-right in Europe | Europe | DW.COM | 14.12.2015

Rudolf van Hüllen, a political researcher and expert on right-wing extremism, believes that young people in Germany don’t fall for the NPD in droves, because the country does a good job educating them about the horrors of the last time a far-right regime was in power during the Third Reich. Starting prevention early, he says, is key.”That’s what makes youth and young adults less susceptible to any form of extremism: right-wing, left-wing and Islamism,” van Hüllen told daily “Die Welt.” “I see encouraging success there. It’s a strong and self-confident generation that’s growing up today.”Still, the NPD is also aiming to garner more support among young people by shedding its skinhead neo-Nazi style .

Source: Young people vote far-right in Europe | Europe | DW.COM | 14.12.2015

a statement of sorrow.. and apology maybe: Y.Zeedan | nadiaharhash

Whether in Kabul, Cairo, Baghdad, Riyadh or Jerusalem … the mentality is the same mentality. A collective hysteria that moves the masses and blinds them into what the “mullah”, “mufti” whatever has dictated. And everyone holds a stone or in the Facebook world of today, throws a word and makes a sentence to confirm the execution of a man … a woman … anyone who stands for a right or a word of truth… confessing that he\she does not hold the access to the truth. Just someone who believes in the greatness of this existence and tries to make it a free space for the metal stoned mind…The sorrow of the narrow-mindedness … the intolerance… the ignorance makes me sorry for Zeedan and for all the free “Arab” souls in these lands

Source: a statement of sorrow.. and apology maybe: Y.Zeedan | nadiaharhash

Edwidge Danticat: Too Many of our People are Living in the Shadows | Repeating Islands

“Immigration reform. Do it.” That’s the simple message for the next president from celebrated novelist and memoirist Edwidge Danticat, who says too many families are being separated and too many people forced into the shadows.

Source: Edwidge Danticat: Too Many of our People are Living in the Shadows | Repeating Islands