Category Archives: human rights

Robert Reich: Fueling the Fire – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

Perpetrators of hate crimes often take their cues from what they hear in the media.

But this doesn’t absolve politicians who have been fueling such hatefulness.Perpetrators of hate crimes often take their cues from what they hear in the media. And the recent inclination of some politicians to use inflammatory rhetoric is contributing to a climate of hate and fear.Carly Fiorina continues to allege, for example, that Planned Parenthood is selling body parts of fetuses.Although the claim has been proven baseless, it’s been repeated not only by Fiorina but also by other candidates. Mike Huckabee calls it “sickening” that “we give these butchers money to harvest human organs.”Even in the wake of Friday’s Colorado shootings, Donald Trump referred to videos “with some of these people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you’re selling parts to a car.”Some candidates are also fomenting animus toward Muslims.Huckabee says he’d “like for Barack Obama to resign if he’s not going to protect America and instead protect the image of Islam.”And Trump not only fails to condemn violence he provokes but finds excuses for it.Ben Carson says allowing Syrian refugees into the United States is analogous to exposing a neighborhood to a “rabid dog.” Last September Carson said he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.”Since the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris earlier this month, Trump has advocated registering all Muslims in the United States and putting American mosques under surveillance.

Source: Robert Reich: Fueling the Fire – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

Somali journalist killed in Mogadishu by bomb planted in her car – Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the targeted killing of national radio and TV journalist Hindiya Mohamed in Mogadishu today.Mohamed, who worked for Radio Mogadishu and Somali National TV, was badly wounded by a bomb planted in her car and died from her injuries in Madina Hospital a few hours later.No organization has claimed the bombing but it had all the hallmarks of an operation by the Islamist rebel militia Al Shabaab. This group had already targeted journalists from the national media of the Somali State against which it is fighting.“We are appalled to learn of yet another journalist’s death in Somalia,” said Cléa Kahn-Sriber, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “The government must do everything possible to arrest those responsible for such attacks and bring them to justice. The impunity reigning in Somalia just encourages murders of this kind. Our thoughts are with Hindiya Mohamed’s family,especially her children, which has already suffered so much.”Mohamed’s husband, Liban Ali Nur, a journalist who also worked for national television, was killed in a suicide bombing in September 2012 at The Village, a Mogadishu restaurant frequented by media personnel. The bombing was claimed by Al Shabaab at the time, which said it had intended to kill journalists.Mohamed is the 38th journalist to be killed in connection with their work in Somalia since 2010. Ranked 172nd out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Somalia is Africa’s deadliest country for media personnel.

Source: Somali journalist killed in Mogadishu by bomb planted in her car – Reporters Without Borders

Hilary Benn’s speech on Syria could transform Labour | Martin Kettle | Comment is free | The Guardian

Yet Hilary Benn’s speech at the end of the Syria debate on Wednesday night was politically elevating all the same. It was riveting as he delivered it in real time on the night. It was still compelling when replayed in the cold light of morning. It was calm and without pomposity. And over the allotted 15 minutes it led unerringly to a climactic argument – that the right thing to do in Syria is to stand up to Islamic State’s fascism.

Source: Hilary Benn’s speech on Syria could transform Labour | Martin Kettle | Comment is free | The Guardian

 

{The load he dropped, while not bombastic, will soon enough be discovered to be warmed over horse droppings from prancing too hard to show he is not a softy. Common and uncommon good sense lose again – lives will be lost needlessly and terrorism will gain new recruits.}

The other mass shooting that happened today in the United States – The Washington Post

Suddenly, the little-noticed crime in Georgia became the second mass shooting in a single day — and at least the third since Robert L. Dear Jr. opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic last week in Colorado springs.

Source: The other mass shooting that happened today in the United States – The Washington Post

Video: Israeli soldier forces knife on Palestinian girl | The Electronic Intifada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6HJuiH181EThe 3-minute video appears to have been filmed from a vehicle stopped at the checkpoint. At the beginning, a man in civilian clothes can be seen speaking to the girl next to a white truck. Israeli soldiers are standing nearby and giving orders to others.The girl is not restrained by the soldiers and walks toward the cab of the white truck. At 1:30, one of the soldiers throws what appears to be a knife onto the ground.The girl, with her arms raised near her chest, trembles. The soldier then appears to order her to bend down and pick up the knife.She kneels down and picks it up, and then appears to talk to the soldier as she holds it. As she kneels, a second soldier aims his weapon at her.A third soldier then approaches and leads her away with her hands behind her back.As with other similar incidents, the video has fueled widespread suspicions that many of the alleged stabbing attempts in which Palestinians were killed involved the planting of evidence.

Source: Video: Israeli soldier forces knife on Palestinian girl | The Electronic Intifada

Bullshit Artist Donald Trump’s 9/11 Cheering “Evidence” Immediately Debunked: Gothamist

Donald Trump took a break from demanding that America kill children, mistreating people with disabilities, and re-arranging photos of himself on his desk to continue pushing a fourth-hand 9/11 NJ “cheering” narrative that has now been debunked and refuted multiple times. But because Trump is a dangerous snake oil salesman who remains on top of the Republican presidential nominee tire fire, it’s important to make it abundantly clear when Trump’s particular brand of bigoted racism lapses into outright fantasy.

Source: Bullshit Artist Donald Trump’s 9/11 Cheering “Evidence” Immediately Debunked: Gothamist

In Oldham, Jeremy Corbyn is just another face of ‘poncified’ Labour | Rafael Behr | Comment is free | The Guardian

Ukip sympathies in Oldham carry a note of wounded expropriation. A refrain is that politics no longer belongs to “people from round here”. Hopes that Corbynism might be the adhesive reconnecting a dislocated core to the party seem misplaced. It feels more like a catalyst for decline, another iteration of tin-eared disregard for local sensibilities – distinct from Blairism only in the sense that they are opposite sides of one Islington coin.Labour MPs report similar problems across the north of England. A relationship of long estrangement is reaching closure. People cared about Lab our when they thought the feeling was mutual. Now they are over it and Corbyn isn’t winning them back.“He’s an idiot,” says one middle-aged lady in Royton, outside Oldham town centre. Asked to explain what prompts that view she shrugs. “It’s all the things he comes out with. He needs to get his act together.”

Source: In Oldham, Jeremy Corbyn is just another face of ‘poncified’ Labour | Rafael Behr | Comment is free | The Guardian

Doc Explores Mitrice Richardson’s Suspicious Death After Malibu Arrest: LAist

Lost Compassion, directed by Charles Croft and Chip Croft, explores the case of Richardson, a young woman who disappeared after she was released from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Malibu/Lost Hills Station at 27050 Agoura Rd. in Agoura, and whose body was found a year later in a remote area known as Dark Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains.The case remains open, according to the L.A. Daily News. L.A. County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Rod Kusch said in an email to the outlet that former leads have been exhausted, but that “any new leads will be pursued when they are received by the Sheriff’s Department. It is a death investigation at this time, as the coroner’s office has not ruled it a homicide.” Richardson’s mother, Latice Sutton, believes her daughter was murdered. The tagline for the film is, “Someone knows.”Richardson was 24 years old when she disappeared in September of 2009, according to reporter Mike Kessler, who dove deep into the case for Los Angeles Magazine in 2011. She was sent to jail for allegedly refusing to pay her bill at a restaurant in Malibu. Though she was behaving strangely, she was not held by police for a psychological evaluation. Instead, she was released alone that same night, after midnight, into the remote area surrounding the Lost Hills station. She did not have any money, her car had been impounded, and she did not have her phone. After she was released, she simply disappeared.

Source: Doc Explores Mitrice Richardson’s Suspicious Death After Malibu Arrest: LAist