Category Archives: human rights

CENSORED NEWS: Navajo Veterans Leave for Standing Rock on Dec. 2, 2016

Censored News is a service to grassroots Indigenous Peoples engaged in resistance and upholding human rights.

Source: CENSORED NEWS: Navajo Veterans Leave for Standing Rock on Dec. 2, 2016

PETITION: We Stand with Standing Rock: Stop DAPL! End the Violence! Honor Treaties! | United For Peace and Justice

PETITION: We Stand with Standing Rock: Stop DAPL! End the Violence! Honor Treaties!Militarized police (from Indiana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wyoming) have taken a side and are organizing with DAPL and the National Guard to suppress Indigenous Peoples and their supporters, initiating unwarranted violent force against nonviolent water and land protectors in a chilling reenactment of a deeply buried history. Please sign the following petition to make it stop!We the undersigned support the many Native Nations gathered at Standing Rock to protect the Missouri River from illegal and unsafe pipeline construction in North Dakota.Act now, to intervene on their behalf to respect the Fort Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1868 affirming the rights of Indians to this land should be honored at long last, shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline, and end the organized brutality against the prayerful Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their peaceful supporters.

Source: PETITION: We Stand with Standing Rock: Stop DAPL! End the Violence! Honor Treaties! | United For Peace and Justice

Twitter Says It Would Consider Banning Donald Trump’s Account: SFist – Facebook’s Zuckerberg would have not said no to Hitler? You bet he would not have…

“Our real goal is to reflect what our community wants,” he explained in a tech conference interview. “That kind of content, we would have thought previously that would make a lot of people feel uncomfortable, and people wouldn’t want that. But at the point where the person who’s elected president of the United States is expressing that opinion and has 60 million people who are followers, then the question is, OK, I think that that is mainstream political discourse that I think we need to be pretty careful about saying that that’s not a reasonable [inaudible].”

Source: Twitter Says It Would Consider Banning Donald Trump’s Account: SFist

Dutch lawmakers endorse limited burqa ban | NRS-Import | DW.COM | Shame does not count any more for Dutch?

Almost as shameful and ironic as possible where leaders once wore Star of David to give support to Jews hated by Germans. Now, they join those who want to brand all Muslims as people to be feared, hated and distrusted.

The House of Representatives in the Netherlands has voted in favor of prohibiting the face-covering burqa and niqab in some public places. The government has insisted the move is soley for security purposes.

Source: Dutch lawmakers endorse limited burqa ban | NRS-Import | DW.COM | 29.11.2016

Antibiotic resistance and clonal diversity of invasive Staphylococcus aureus in the rural Ashanti Region, Ghana | BMC Infectious Diseases | MRSA – Not good – pandemic related.

Results In total, 9,834 blood samples were cultured, out of which 0.6% (n = 56) were positive for S. aureus. Multidrug resistance (MDR) was detected in 35.7% (n = 20) of the S. aureus strains, of which one was a MRSA. The highest rate of antibiotic resistance was seen for commonly available antibiotics, including penicillin (n = 55; 98.2%), tetracycline (n = 32; 57.1%) and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (n = 26; 46.4%). Of all S. aureus strains, 75.0% (n = 42) carried the PVL-encoding genes. We found 25 different spa types with t355 (n = 11; 19.6%), t314 (n = 8; 14.3%), t084 (n = 8; 14.3%) and t311 (n = 5; 8.9%) being predominant.ConclusionThe study exhibited an alarmingly large level of antibiotic resistance to locally available antibiotics. The frequency of genetically diverse and PVL-positive methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) was high and could represent a reservoir for the emergence of virulent PVL-positive MRSA clones.

Source: Antibiotic resistance and clonal diversity of invasive Staphylococcus aureus in the rural Ashanti Region, Ghana | BMC Infectious Diseases | Full Text

Greek refugee lawyer targeted by police | Europe | DW.COM | 27.11.2016

“This really devastated me, because in all of this, the fact that I have always fought against indiscriminate violence and represented over 1,000 Greek police officers for violations of their own human rights has been ignored. Can you imagine the entire police force of Greece saying my actions as a lawyer are behind them feeling unsafe and needing more security, while I don’t even allow the derogatory term ‘cops’ in my Facebook timeline?”This isn’t the first time that Koutra has been targeted by police. In 2013, the World Organisation Against Torture highlighted an incident in Thessaloniki when the lawyer was detained in a police cell for 20 minutes after demanding access to a transgender client. The police station refused to file a complaint. She filed the complaint that same night at another police station. In 2015, prosecutors closed the case, judging that Koutra had willingly locked herself in the cell. The police officer in question lodged a civil action against her for 80,000 euros alleging “defamation.”One of her Koutra’s main concerns is that such events will put younger colleagues off human rights work. “After this, some team members have been discouraged from active involvement in the Pleiades probono lawyers’ team. It really is a loss.”

Source: Greek refugee lawyer targeted by police | Europe | DW.COM | 27.11.2016

Standing Rock protesters will not follow official directive to leave camps | US news | The Guardian

At a press conference, Standing Rock Sioux tribal leader Dave Archambault and other protest organizers confidently explained that they would stay at the Oceti Sakowin camp and continue with nonviolent protests, a day after Archambault received a letter from the US army corps of engineers that said all federal lands north of the Cannonball river would be closed to public access 5 December over “safety concerns”.The corps cited the coming winter and increasingly contentious clashes between protesters – who believe the pipeline could harm drinking water and Native A

Source: Standing Rock protesters will not follow official directive to leave camps | US news | The Guardian

In Madagascar Test, Drone Delivers Medicine by Air – The New York Times

Speeding Madagascar Health Care by Air

By Heidi HutnerLast summer, Stony Brook University’s Global Health Institute teamed up with Vayu, Inc., a Michigan start-up developing drones aiding medical care, to test aerial shipments of blood and fecal samples and drugs between remote villages in Madagascar and Centre ValBio, the university’s biological research center adjacent to a national park.Parasitic diseases, tuberculosis and a range of other life-threatening illnesses are common among the Malagasy population. But many people live in remote and inaccessible areas. In Ifanadiana, the district where the drone flights took place, travel to medical facilities can take a day or more by foot, across treacherous terrain.“Often, the sick don’t want to walk long distances, they don’t want to leave their children behind and, in many cases, they associate hospitals with bad outcomes and death,” said Dr. Peter M. Small, who heads the university’s health institute and was formerly deputy director of the Tuberculosis Delivery Program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Source: In Madagascar Test, Drone Delivers Medicine by Air – The New York Times

Before the fires are out, Israeli politicians blame the Arabs | +972 Magazine

To be clear, it’s entirely possible that not all of the dozens of fires in Israel and Palestine over the past few days broke out accidentally or naturally. It’s fire season — the combination of unusual dryness for this time of year and strong winds make wildfires a naturally occurring threat. And on top of that, Palestinian and Arab towns, cities and villages, have also been evacuated and hit by the fires — they’re not “targeting” Jews.

Source: Before the fires are out, Israeli politicians blame the Arabs | +972 Magazine