Category Archives: terrorism

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.

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.

Israel bans Muslim call to prayer in Hebron 53 times in May | Maan News Agency

Israeli forces have forbidden mosque leaders from playing the call for prayer through loudspeakers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron 53 times in May under the pretext that it bothers nearby Jewish settlers, the Palestinian ministry of endowment said.

Hundreds of extremist Jewish settlers have taken over homes in Hebron’s Old City, and Israeli authorities use their presence in the southern West Bank city as an excuse to limit the ability of the mosque to play the call five times a day, according to Islamic custom.

The ministry of endowment’s Hebron office said in a statement that banning call for prayer “is a clear violation of freedom of worship which all international conventions maintain.”

In April, Israeli authorities prevented the mosque from playing the call to prayer 60 times.

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

via Israel bans Muslim call to prayer in Hebron 53 times in May | Maan News Agency.

Only Chinese-born parliamentarian in UK to quit politics over racist abuse | UK news | theguardian.com

The Hong-Kong-born immigrant, who has lived in Northern Ireland for four decades, said she was also considering leaving the province for good because of enduring sectarianism and now rising racism.

Lo, who represents South Belfast in the regional parliament, blamed continual racist behaviour towards her, as well as first minister Peter Robinson’s support for a born-again Christian preacher’s depiction of Islam as “the spawn of the devil”, as her reasons for wanting out of Ulster politics.

In an interview with the Guardian on Thursday, Lo said she was shaken up by a recent incident during the European election campaign when a loyalist mob followed her out of an east Belfast shopping centre.

“They started hurling abuse at me and I decided to get out of Connswater shopping centre as quickly as possible. About three or four individuals then followed me to the car park but I kept ahead of them walking as quickly as I could. Even when I got inside my car there was a young girl who climbed out of the wound-down window of a parked car and started shouting vile things at me. If I hadn’t decided to act quickly and get out of there I don’t know what would have happened to me,” Lo said.

via Only Chinese-born parliamentarian in UK to quit politics over racist abuse | UK news | theguardian.com.

#YesAllWomen reveals the constant barrage of sexism that women face | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Valenti

The reason women mobilized so quickly after the shooting is because we recognized immediately the language and ideology in Rodger’s videos and manifesto: the over-the-top sexual entitlement; the rage against women who “dared” to reject him; the antiquated, but nonetheless terrifying, belief that women should not be in control of their own sexual choices. Regardless of Rodger’s mental health issues – which we still don’t know much about – his ideas were not “crazy” by the standards of the world today. They are the norm.

So students protested in a walk to Rodger’s apartment holding signs with slogans like, “Nobody is entitled to a woman’s body”. A new Tumblr, When Women Refuse, listed story after story of women who suffered violence after rejecting a man’s sexual advances. And the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen went viral as hundreds of thousands of people shared their experiences with misogyny.

via #YesAllWomen reveals the constant barrage of sexism that women face | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

Watch: Israeli forces detain 4 teenage girls in south Hebron hills | Maan News Agency

Israeli forces on Tuesday detained four Palestinian girls in the south Hebron hills after a settler accused them of stealing cherries, human rights group B’Tselem said.

The girls, aged 11 to 15, were on their way home from school with an Israeli army escort when Israeli police arrested them. They were taken to an Israeli police station in Hebron with no adult accompaniment and held for four hours until being handed over to Palestinian police and released.

via Watch: Israeli forces detain 4 teenage girls in south Hebron hills | Maan News Agency.

Texas woman files federal lawsuit after birth in solitary confinement results in baby’s death

The claim further goes on to describe Guerrero’s night in solitary confinement, where she tried in vain to get medical attention all night and ended up delivering a baby that was not breathing and had its umbilical cord wrapped around its neck.

Though shocking, I wish I could say this news is surprising. Given what we know about access to reproductive health care in prison and the criminalization of drug-addicted pregnant women, it really isn’t – it is a mere continuation of the long list of degradations and indignities people suffer when imprisoned. I’ve quoted Cece McDonald on this and before and will do so again: prisons aren’t safe for anybody.

via Texas woman files federal lawsuit after birth in solitary confinement results in baby’s death.

Jimmy Carter’s Call to Action – Women, Religion, Violence and Power – Look to the Stars

“It’s kind of a subtle thing that men enjoy their superiority in getting the best jobs, the best opportunity to go to university and that sort of thing,” says Carter. “Two of the most revered institutions in the United States of America is our university system and our military. Sexual abuse or assaults on campuses in our major universities, like Harvard and Yale and Emery University where I teach, is really horrendous and only four percent of the rapes on college campuses are reported. There are about six times as many reported in civilian life outside of universities, and this is primarily because presidents of colleges and universities and deans and so forth don’t want to bring discredit or a bad reputation on their own institution. So they encourage girls not to report.

“And soon, a few boys on the campus who are students realize that they can commit these crimes with impunity. So they become serial rapists and get away with it. The department of defence found that in the US military alone, 26 thousand sexual assaults took place, and only about 300 actually resulted in anybody being punished. That’s about one percent.

“You see, there’s an aversion to admit what goes on even in our most cherished institutions.”

via Jimmy Carter’s Call to Action – Women, Religion, Violence and Power – Look to the Stars.

The Hindu fundamentalists: request to ban the Muslim call to prayer in India – Fides News Agency

Feeling big after win of fundamentalist to lead India – shame!

The protest follows a series of incidents in Mangalore in recent days, in which groups of thugs threw stones against two mosques. In another incident, some Hindu extremists entered a madrassa (Islamic religious school) in the village of Vittla, shouting slogans of victory. In other cases, the individual Muslim citizens were beaten by radical militants.

via The Hindu fundamentalists: request to ban the Muslim call to prayer in India – Fides News Agency.