Category Archives: human rights

John McCain Position Switch On Bergdahl Deal-Is He The Most Disingenuous Member Of Senate Or Simply Unfit To Serve?

While McCain notes that he objected to an earlier proposal that would have called for releasing the very same high value terrorists as an act of “confidence building” with the Taliban, he clearly states that he would support the release of these people if the prize were to be the American soldier being held by the Taliban. He later modifies his response to say that if the exchange were for one of these terrorists—whom he told us just this past Sunday were people responsible for the deaths of thousands—he would support the deal.

Does anyone out there believe that the critics would have been silenced if the exchange had only involved one terrorist…or two…or three? If you believe that our policy of not negotiating with terrorists is the correct policy, does negotiating for the release of one high ranking terrorist make it better? Yet, there is Mr. McCain voicing his support for a deal that , just three months later, he would go on TV to condemn.

I don’t think anything more need be said except that we should all be embarrassed and deeply concerned that this man continues to hold such an important position in our government.

via John McCain Position Switch On Bergdahl Deal-Is He The Most Disingenuous Member Of Senate Or Simply Unfit To Serve?.

12 Haters Running this Fall – Electoral Extremism | Southern Poverty Law Center

The typically baseless claims of these candidates range from demonizing propaganda about certain minority groups to the promotion of fantastic conspiracy theories about the federal government’s allegedly evil machinations. What follows are snapshots of a dozen such candidates, including Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, independents and others who are running for political office this fall or who ran earlier in the year.

via Electoral Extremism | Southern Poverty Law Center.

Growing Up To Be Like Yuri Kochiyama | Race Files

She may be best known in the public eye for the iconic picture that shows her cradling Malcolm X’s head in her lap after he was killed in a Manhattan auditorium, but Yuri Kochiyama’s life and legacy stood for much more, especially to Asian Americans. Many of us learned of Yuri Kochiyama’s recent death, not from mainstream news outlets, which have yet to do her legacy full justice, but from one another. And we have had very similar collective responses: tremendous gratitude for how she influenced us, coupled with a redoubling of our commitment to the principles she lived by.

via Growing Up To Be Like Yuri Kochiyama | Race Files.

A Men’s Rights Group Crowdfunded $25,000 for Extra Security Because of ‘Bullies’ – The Wire

A Voice For Men’s homepage currently links to a change.org petition demanding that society “class feminism as a terrorist group.”

A Voice for Men has said that it welcomes “peaceful” protests of their conference, which makes sense. As a philosophy, Men’s Rights depends on the conviction that men and men’s rights activists are the most persecuted people on the planet. Protesters — not to mention fundraising for a security detail — helps to sell that idea.

via A Men’s Rights Group Crowdfunded $25,000 for Extra Security Because of ‘Bullies’ – The Wire.

You Want Pictures, You’ve Got Pictures: Conservative Backlash Gets Visual in White House’s Soldier – Taliban Prisoner Swap — BagNews

Certainly, the prisoner exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is red meat for an opposition that hasn’t had that as vivid an issue to really sink its teeth into. The deal to trade Bergdahl for five high profile Gitmo detainees, however, threatens to dust off the visual genre of the “war on terror,” a vocabulary that has been more in remission.

Of course, I’m not showing you anything here that isn’t already circulating in the caustic hothouse of the political and social web. Rather, I’m just taking those visuals boiling to the surface and putting some air quotes around them. One thing that can be said, though, is that visual memes are moving faster and lending themselves to more chaotic and viral expression then anything we saw during the heyday of Bush’s Iraq intervention. The DailyMail put together the Homeland/Nicholas Brody analogy, by the way, as if Bowe was actually a one man Taliban sleeper cell, not just a young man who has had some seriously mixed feelings about the war.

via You Want Pictures, You’ve Got Pictures: Conservative Backlash Gets Visual in White House’s Soldier – Taliban Prisoner Swap — BagNews.

More police attacks on media 12 months after unpunished Gezi violence – Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders condemns police violence against many journalists during demonstrations throughout Turkey on 31 May to mark the first anniversary of the start of the “Occupy Gezi” protest movement.

After Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned in advance he would permit no demonstration in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the epicentre of the protests a year ago, the media were denied access to the square from the start of the afternoon. At least 25,000 policemen and 50 water cannon trucks were deployed in Istanbul alone.

In the course of using teargas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters, the police also targeted journalists. At least ten journalists were attacked and the members of a CNN International crew were detained.

“A year after Gezi, the security forces are still using unjustifiable violence against journalists covering demonstrations,” said Johann Bihr, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.

via More police attacks on media 12 months after unpunished Gezi violence – Reporters Without Borders.

Woman journalist found with throat cut in southern Libya – Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is shocked to learn that Naseeb Miloud Karfana, a TV journalist based in the southern city of Sabha, was murdered on Thursday 29 May. Her body was found together with her fiancé’s in the city’s northern Al-Hay Al-Jadida district. Her throat had been cut and she appeared to have been tortured.

Naseeb had worked for the state-owned TV station Libya Al-Wataniya as its programme coordinators in Sabha for the past eight months, the station’s director, Ali Shaniber, said.

Karfana left the TV station at about 7 p.m. with her fiancé, who came to collect her in his car, so that they could attend a friend’s wedding together. When she failed to arrive, her mother contacted the TV station, where an employee confirmed that Karfana had left.

The authorities have not as yet released any autopsy reports identifying the exact cause of death of the two victims.

Relatives said Karfana and her fiancé had recently received repeated threats from an unidentified person. Reporters Without Borders urges the competent authorities to carry out an impartial investigation without delay to identify the motive for this double murder, giving full consideration to the possibility of a link to Karfana’s work.

“It is imperative that those responsible for this shocking murder are quickly found and brought to account, in order to end impunity in Libya,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

via Woman journalist found with throat cut in southern Libya – Reporters Without Borders.

An open letter to all my male friends | Estelle Tang | Comment is free | theguardian.com

To all my male friends,

I want to tell you about something that happened to me today.

I was walking to the gym when a guy on a bike rode past and said, “baby, can I smack that ass?” I am used to this kind of behaviour in my New York City neighbourhood, so I usually ignore it. Trust me – if I had it out with every man who said things like this to me, I’d have a much shorter, much more annoying day. So I just kept walking. He said it again, but before I could even decide what to do (or if I should do anything) about it, I felt his hand on my butt.

via An open letter to all my male friends | Estelle Tang | Comment is free | theguardian.com.