Category Archives: human rights

2 Foreign Aid Workers Are Gunned Down in Afghanistan, Officials Say – NYTimes.com

The women worked for the International Assistance Mission, were both from Finland, and were in their 40s or 50s, Mr. Wafa said. “They were inside a taxi and we have no idea as of now what they were doing in downtown Herat city,” he said.

A spate of shootings of foreign citizens occurred earlier this year before Afghanistan held elections, causing many organizations to curtail the movements of foreign staff members.

The International Assistance Mission, known as I.A.M., has been operating in Afghanistan since the 1960s, running an eye hospital and offering orthopedic services, as well as offering assistance programs for the poor. Its expatriate staff are often well assimilated in Afghanistan, learn the local languages, and live quietly with their families in Afghan communities.

In 2010, members of a 10-member I.A.M. team conducting a mobile eye clinic in remote areas of Nuristan Province were ambushed and killed by gunmen.

via 2 Foreign Aid Workers Are Gunned Down in Afghanistan, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

Israeli forces bomb al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City | Maan News Agency

{Let me see if I have got this right – if one person – in a crowd of 5,000 engaged in shopping or just living – shoots at a fighter bomber, the fighter bomber is justified in bombing the 5,000 innocent people? Does that sound right to you? Me neither.}

Israeli warplanes on Wednesday bombed a central Gaza City hospital after the army claimed militants opened fire from the premises, while a UN human rights chief warned that abuses by Hamas did not justify possible war crimes by Israel.

The Israeli military said in a statement that they had “targeted specific sites” in the al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital compound “in light of several occasions in which fire was opened” and “despite repeated warnings against such activities.”

via Israeli forces bomb al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City | Maan News Agency.

Israeli artists opposing the war come under attack on social networks – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz

Israeli artists opposing the war come under attack on social networks – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz.

As the guns roar in Gaza, Israeli artists who express sorrow over the deaths on both sides have been pilloried on social networks. “A disgrace to the State of Israel,” is one of the kinder phrases.

Comedienne and actress Orna Banai is just one example. She described herself as a “weirdo left-wing Arab-lover” on a news broadcast — and yes, expressed sorrow over the deaths of civilians on both sides and said she opposed the war. In turn, wags on social networks have turned the guns on her, mixing in a dose of misogyny and homophobia; Banai is a declared lesbian.

The actress discussed her views with a local Tel Aviv newspaper, whose editor provided the following headline: “Orna Banai: ‘I’m ashamed that this is my people.’”

Over the weekend, a Hebrew-language Facebook page surfaced entitled “Orna Banai and anti-Israel artists to Gaza.” The page’s custodians made sure to add a subtitle: “Over there they’ll be happy to rape you and your daughters in front of your husband, and only afterward slaughter him as well.”

During the Jerusalem Film Festival, which ended Sunday, a raft of directors called for a cease-fire in a letter; one of them was Shira Geffen. None other than Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat replied in a Facebook post, referring to the directors as “a disgrace to the State of Israel.”

When Geffen’s film was about to be screened, the director went onstage, read out the names of four Palestinian children who had been killed on a Gaza beach, and asked those who felt as she did to stand for a moment of silence.

The responses were harsh. A Hebrew-language Facebook page entitled “Contra B’tselem” — referring to the rights group — published a post reading: “Does such a woman have a place in the State of Israel?! Does such a woman deserve that Israeli army troops should protect her while she sleeps?! Our troops are fighting and she stands for a moment of silence for the enemy that fires on us without letup?!

“Shira Geffen, you are a disgrace to the country! Why don’t you stand in silence in memory of Staff Sgt. Eitan Barak, a combat soldier who fell defending the country? We are ashamed that there are people like you in the country. And it’s even sadder to me that Staff Sgt. Eitan Barak, of blessed memory, was killed as he protected a woman like you. What does your brother [the singer Aviv Geffen] sing? We’re a screwed-up generation? Well, we’re a screwed-up generation because of people like you!”

Shira Geffen’s own Facebook post about the incident reads: “The fact that expressing empathy for the four dead children draws such hateful and violent responses shows how low our society has sunk. With your permission, I would like to come out of the closet — when a child is killed, it hurts me no matter whether he is an Israeli or a Palestinian, from Ashkelon or from Gaza.”

According to Geffen, “My very ability to feel empathy for both sides does not make me anti-Israel. I can have compassion and mourn with the three mothers who lost their children in the abominable terror attack of kidnapping and murder, just the same as I can feel compassion for a child who was burned alive.”

Trouble in Spain, too

On Thursday, the singer Achinoam Nini, also known as Noa, described an anti-Israel demonstration outside one of her concerts in Spain.

“Before the concert, there was a very loud demonstration against Israel,” including cries of “Noa terrorista.” As Noa described the situation on Facebook, in Israel she is attacked by the right and pays “a very high price for being outspoken about peace and expressing left-wing political views, and in Spain, the left calls me a terrorist.”

According to Noa in her English-language post, before the concert she told the audience how once again “we are paying the price of the failure and cowardice of political and religious leaders, who have betrayed us, Arabs and Jews alike, by not doing everything in their power to avoid violence. No excuses are acceptable.

“I believe in peace, I believe in two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side, supporting each other, growing together. I believe in dialogue, it is the only way.”

On the other side of the political map, rapper Yoav Eliasi, also known as Shadow, has launched a group called Shadow’s Lions, which expresses hatred of the war’s opponents. Eliasi’s people hold right-wing demonstrations directly across from left-wing rallies.

The Lions say they’re for anyone “tired of the left wing’s hypocrisy – anyone tired of sitting at the keyboard who wants to do something beyond putting up angry posts.” Eliasi marks out targets for the group and has his picture taken with rifles.

But he, too, has a tough adversary: the left wingers who make fun of the images he posts. They bash his musical career and create Facebook pages with titles like “Shadow does cute things.” Or they report his posts as offensive and try to get them taken off Facebook. He details these problems on his own page.

In the meantime, Noa is on the defensive. “To remove any shadow of a doubt: I have no sympathy for Hamas or any of the insane jihadis of whatever kind. The relentless, deliberate bombings of civilians are intolerable, and I too am frightened for the welfare of my family and for all of Israel,” she wrote in Hebrew on Facebook.

“I’m worried about the welfare of innocent civilians wherever they may be, even in Gaza! What — are they fair game? But I say again and again that our leaders have a responsibility to make peace in any way possible, and by doing so to protect our lives.”

Noa: Open letter to the wind

If we refuse to recognize each other’s rights and embrace our obligations, if we continue to each cling to his own narrative with contempt and disregard for that of the other, if we again and again choose swords over words, if we sanctify land and not the lives of our children, we shall soon be forced to truly seek a colony on the moon, for our land will be so drenched in blood and so cluttered with tomb stones there will be nothing left for the living.

I wrote these words, and sang them together with my friend Mira Awad. They stand truer than ever today:

“when I cry I cry for both of us,

My pain has no name.

When I cry, I cry to the merciless sky and say:

There must be another way”

Noa, july 22, 2014

via Noa: Open letter to the wind.

Gaza girls flee shells in Shujaiyeh, killed in place deemed safer | Maan News Agency

A Palestinian couple from Shajaiyeh decided to leave their home several days ago and bring their family to central Gaza City, thinking it would be a safer place.

However, four sisters from the family were killed when their grandparents’ home where they were taking refuge was hit by Israeli artillery shells.

“They fled the shelling in Shujaiyeh neighborhood, to their grandfather’s house in Thalathini, but shells followed them there,” the bereaved father said.

“My daughters were playing on the roof of their grandfather’s house when I was telling my wife on the phone that we should go back home,” father Yasser al-Qassas said.

The call ended all of a sudden, he said. “When I redialed there was no answer.”

“I telephoned one of my wife’s brothers and he didn’t answer either. A cousin of mine then answered my call to say that my daughters had been killed.”

via Gaza girls flee shells in Shujaiyeh, killed in place deemed safer | Maan News Agency.

Dozens more killed in Israel’s Gaza operation – Daily News Egypt

Over a dozen Palestinians were killed overnight and early Tuesday as warplanes and artillery continued targeting homes in Gaza on the fifteenth day of Israel’s offensive, Gaza residents confirmed.

The latest series of Israeli attacks brought the Palestinian death toll to over 600, according to Palestinian health officials, with over 3,500 Palestinians injured.

“Since starting our ground operation in Gaza, we have struck 1,388 terror sites and killed 183 terrorists,” an IDF spokesperson said on his Twitter account.

via Dozens more killed in Israel’s Gaza operation – Daily News Egypt.

West Africa Ebola outbreak total tops 1,000 | CIDRAP

As 67 new Ebola virus disease (EVD) illnesses in Sierra Leone and Liberia pushed the outbreak total to 1,048 cases, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned about the risk of virus transmission from wildlife, especially fruit bats.

Along with new infections, 19 more deaths were reported in Sierra Leone and Liberia, raising the fatality count to 632, according to a Jul 19 update from the World Health Organization (WHO) that covers new cases reported from Jul 15 to Jul 17.

via West Africa Ebola outbreak total tops 1,000 | CIDRAP.

Ancient Christian population of Mosul flees Islamic State | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

The ancient Christian community of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul had all but fled by Saturday, ending a presence stretching back nearly two millennia after radical Islamists set them a midday deadline to submit to Islamic rule or leave.

The ultimatum by the Islamic State drove out the few hundred Christians who had stayed on when the group’s hardline Sunni Muslim fighters overran Mosul a month ago, threatening Christians and the diverse city’s other religious communities.

This week the Islamic State gave any remaining Christians a final choice to make by Saturday noon: convert to Islam, pay a religious tax, or face the sword.

A Catholic bishop from Mosul told Reuters that 150 Christian families had left in recent days and church leaders had advised the few families who wanted to negotiate with militants that they should also flee for their own safety.

The Christians described their flight as a historic loss.

“We have lived in this city and we have had a civilisation for thousands of years – and suddenly some strangers came and expelled us from our homes,” said a woman in her 60s who fled on Friday for Hamdaniya, a mainly Christian town controlled by Kurdish security forces to the southeast of Mosul.

via Ancient Christian population of Mosul flees Islamic State | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR.

Rapes can only be prevented if gods come down from heaven: UP governor – The Times of India

Former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav earlier said rapes were “minor mistakes committed by youngsters” and that laws sending rapists to the gallows must be quashed.

After last week’s rape and murder in Lucknow that caused considerable outrage, the Samajwadi Party chief attributed growing crimes against women to the rising population.

READ ALSO: Mulayam Singh Yadav: UP has 21 crore people, yet lowest number of rapes in India

His brother and PWD minister Shivpal Singh Yadav later endorsed his views.

Asked about the failing law and order after the Badaun incident, where two minor girls were gang-raped and then hung from a tree, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had snapped at a woman reporter: “You are safe… so why rake up the question?”

via Rapes can only be prevented if gods come down from heaven: UP governor – The Times of India.

It’s not just guys running for US Senate that are dumb about rape – it’s politicians the world over. Get with the new program guys – it’s called human rights!

full to capacity | Palestine Rose

no words.

tears.

hospital fridges

are full.

no more

room

to put

martyrs.

no words.

tears.

via full to capacity | Palestine Rose.

 

Me: This affects us all: the victims, their families and friends, those who could be next in the spreading terror and revenge cycle. Pray for the souls of those killed and of the killers who lose their humanity and pieces of their souls as they “follow” orders, “defend” themselves and their mates. War and violence consumes us all – peace it the answer.