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Corazon Aquino dies at 76; restored democracy to the Philippines The charismatic widow of assassinated opposition leader drove dictator from office, but the head of the ‘people power’ movement left a mixed legacy of political and natural disasters. …
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In the wake of the shocking revelation about Bluehost shutting down Web sites of Zimbabwean and Iranian dissidents (and one Belarusian national living and working in the U.S.) on the grounds that Bluehost was just following federal law (which is a crock), this naturally caught my eye:
EFF Releases ‘Surveillance Self-Defense International’
for Iranian Dissidents and Other Protestors
SAN FRANCISCO — July 21, 2009 — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released “Surveillance Self-Defense International” (SSDI) today, a practical guide to help activists from around the world use the Internet safely under repressive regimes.
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Honestly (and all perfunctory “wouldn’t wish it on anybody” statements aside), I don’t know if the presumably imminent departure of Kim Jong-Il (the five-year survival rate of people with pancreatic cancer is a mere 4%) and the rise of his son, Kim Jong Un (whom Kim Jong-Il named as his successor last month — which is no secret to anyone but the North Korean people, who apparently haven’t yet been told) is a good thing, or a bad thing.
What I do remember are the warnings we heard when Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il’s father, was dying, and Kim Jong-Il was poised to assume power — which can be boiled down to: “If you think the father is crazy, wait ’til you get a load of the son.”
What do we know about Kim Jong Un, and what can we expect — or fear?
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Hey, that was the nicest headline I could come up with. He was not a good guy — even if he did figure out later that he screwed up, big-time… Radio City Music Hall big-time. No amount of hindsight or regret brings millions of men, women, and children back from the dead, or begins to compensate for the way the “national social fabric” of the United States was, indeed, “torn asunder.” We haven’t recovered from Vietnam yet (and we may never), we haven’t learned a damned thing from it (and we may never), and there are still kids stumbling over old mines and getting their legs blown off.
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Not that India’s radical religionists aren’t going batpoo ballistic — they are, of course:
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“The Obama administration announced in the statement it would disregard provisions of the legislation…”
What’s this about?
DADT?
DOMA?
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There is a very small cadre of mainstream journalists who have more than earned the highest level of respect and deserve the undivided attention of every American who cares about truth over spin, and substance over style. They’ll never lie to you, or tell you what they think you want to hear. (I said it was a very small cadre.) Paul Krugman is one. Molly Ivins was another.
Two of this exclusive group, writing about two separate issues, ask the same essential question about Barack Obama: Why such unwillingness — or cowardice — to do the job the people hired him to do: reverse the offenses of his predecessor, and work for the best interests of the American people?
When Helen Thomas and Bob Herbert speak, I listen. If only Obama would too:
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In stark legal turnaround,
Obama now resembles BushPresident Barack Obama is morphing into George W. Bush, as administration attorneys repeatedly adopt the executive-authority and national-security rationales that their Republican predecessors preferred.
In courtroom battles and freedom-of-information fights from Washington, D.C., to California, Obama’s legal arguments repeatedly mirror Bush’s: White House turf is to be protected, secrets must be retained and dire warnings are wielded as weapons.
“It’s putting up a veritable wall around the White House, and it’s so at odds with Obama’s campaign commitment to more open government,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a legal watchdog group.
Certainly, some differences exist. …
But not enough for our comfort. War, warantless wiretapping, equality… Read on at the link.
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“Growing” controversy? “Growing”? What, has no one been paying attention since we invaded Iraq? This has been a major “controversy” to me for, oh, I dunno, like six freaking years:
Now, this is one good Christian… Not!, April 6, 2003
Franklin Graham, Christian Crusader, April 21, 2003
One more excellent read on Franklin Graham…, April 21, 2003
Well, better late than never, I suppose, that the U.S. MSM is finally shedding some light on this (six years ago, I had to rely on independent bloggers and the British papers for most of my information) — no matter how annoyed I get that it takes so bloody long for the MSM to catch up with us crazy lefties who’ve been saying “I told you so” all along:
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I know he was Muslim, but he was also Bangladeshi — and when it comes right down to it, death— er, being absorbed into the absolute — is The Great Equalizer, so who cares in the end if I don’t know which language to use? All that matters is, he was brilliant, and his music inspirational beyond words.
So here’s a rough (very rough) translation to Sanskrit:
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Speaking of swine flu (and we were):
New Orleans, Louisiana, Mayor Ray Nagin, who traveled to China on an economic development trip, has been quarantined after possible exposure to the H1N1 virus, his office confirmed Sunday.Nagin flew on a plane that also carried a passenger who is being treated for symptoms suspected to be from the virus, commonly known as swine flu, the mayor’s office said in a statement.
Nagin, his wife and a member of his security detail have been quarantined in Shanghai, though all three remain symptom free, the statement said. …
A bit more from CNN.
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If you haven’t heard this one yet, it’s funny stuff — and it’s not (wait ’til you see the racist screencap after the jump). From the Mormon Lawmakers Say the Darnedest Things Dept:
First, Craig Frank gets all excited because Barack (or “Barak,” as Craig and every other Republican spell it, with the same annoying regularity as they say “Democrat Party,” just to be obnoxious) Obama appointed Utah’s governor, Jon Huntsman, to be the U.S. ambassador to China. This, I thought, was not a great thing, because — or so the Utah print media is inclined to think — Huntsman is one of the most “liberal” elected officials in the We Hate Gays But Disguise It As Christian Love State. It didn’t bother me that we were sending a Mormon to China; it bothered me that Utah was losing one of its precious few officials whose political ideology was anywhere to the left of Genghis Khan.
But that’s not how Craig Frank saw it. Craig Frank saw it as an opportunity to convert all them godless heathen Communists to Mormonism…
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Not that the brainless drones of the Martha Peace Stepford Cult and the tyrants of the Dennis Prager School of Wifely Subjugation would object to returning to the days of legal marital rape in the U.S. — they’d welcome it. But the point stands, regardless:
Hamid Karzai signs law
‘legalising rape in marriage’President Hamid Karzai has signed a law the UN says legalises rape in marriage and prevents women from leaving the house without permission.
The law, which has not been publicly released, is believed to state women can only seek work, education or doctor’s appointments with their husband’s permission.
Only fathers and grandfathers are granted custody of children under the law, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Opponents of the legislation governing the personal lives of Afghanistan’s Shia minority have said it is “worse than during the Taliban”.
Mr Karzai has been accused of electioneering at the expense of women’s rights by signing the law to appeal to crucial Shia swing voters in this year’s presidential poll. …
Gee, kinda like a U.S. presidential candidate — or a sitting U.S. President — sucking up to our own homegrown Talibornagains for votes and other favors at the expense of women and gays, innit?
The bill passed both houses of the Afghan parliament, but was so contentious that the United Nations and women’s rights campaigners have so far been unable to see a copy of the approved bill. … “[T]hey didn’t want to discuss it because Karzai wants to please the Shia before the election.” …A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai would not comment.
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Riddle me this, all you “defenders of traditional marriage”: Wouldn’t you say this is a violation of this man’s “religious freedom”?
Cleric Arrested Over Marriage to 12-Year-Old A Muslim cleric who took a 12-year-old girl as his second wife has been arrested for gross indecency with a minor, Semarang [Indonesia] Police said on Tuesday.
“We have collected enough evidence to charge him with underage obscenity under the Criminal Code,” chief detective Royhardi Siahaan said.
He said that Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, who married the girl in August, may face up to 15 years imprisonment for Criminal Code offenses and for breaching the Child Protection Law, namely the sexual and economic exploitation of a child.
The 43-year-old cleric was declared a suspect after police collected documents officially showing the girl’s age, and after the religious court refused his attempt to register the second marriage. …
Oh, I’m so sorry, Anti-Gays — in your book, “freedom of religion” doesn’t apply to non-Christians, does it?
Related:
Whose Idea of “Traditional Marriage”?, February 28, 2009
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Remember the child detainees of Gitmo? No? Well, it has been a while — long enough for these boys to grow into adults while awaiting trial (any trial, even the kangarro court otherwise known as a “secret military tribunal”). Here’s our coverage of the child detainees when we first leaned about them… nearly six years ago:
If This Doesn’t Outrage You, You’re Not Human
April 24, 2003Children held at Camp Xray, US admits …
And think about this: If there is even one child under the age of 16 now, it means he was captured, transported to Cuba, and has been rotting in a cage at Gitmo for nearly a year and a half — or since he was between 13 and 14 years old. …
AI Weighs in on Gitmo Children
April 24, 2003Most of the 600-plus detainees in Guantanamo are confined to tiny cells for virtually 24 hours a day and reportedly allowed to exercise in shackles for only 15 minutes twice a week…
Gitmo Update: Rummy, Myers Dis Concerns
for Child Welfare
April 27, 2003A senior United Nations envoy has called on the United States to take prompt action over the fate of three teenage boys being held with other terror suspects in its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. …
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the detention of the boys — aged between 13 and 15 — at Camp Delta, saying they are “enemy combatants”, captured while fighting for the Taleban or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. …
One of the youths has been identified by Canadian media reports as a Canadian citizen wanted by the US over a grenade attack in Afghanistan which killed a US soldier. …
Which brings us to a long-awaited update about that very Canadian, Omar Khadr:
Leading Rights Groups Urge Obama to Stop Guantánamo Proceedings Against Child Soldiers WASHINGTON, D.C. — January 12, 2009 — Five leading human rights and civil liberties groups sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama today, urging him to suspend the Guantánamo Bay military commissions and to ensure that the upcoming trial of Omar Khadr, a 22-year-old Canadian, does not proceed. The trial is scheduled to begin on January 26, six days after the presidential inauguration.
Khadr is slated to be tried before the widely discredited military commissions for war crimes he is alleged to have committed when he was 15. There is broad global recognition that the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict is a serious abuse in itself. This is reflected in the fact that no existing international tribunal has ever prosecuted a child for war crimes.
The groups — the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch — urged Obama to drop the military commission charges against Khadr and either repatriate him to Canada or, if there is evidence to support it, to prosecute him in U.S. federal courts in accordance with international juvenile justice and fair trial standards.
The groups also called on Obama to immediately suspend pending proceedings against Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is also charged before the military commissions for crimes allegedly committed when he was 16 or 17. A military judge twice ruled that statements Jawad made following his arrest were not admissible at trial because they were obtained through torture. However, the government has challenged the ruling and the Court of Military Commission Review in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to hear arguments on Tuesday, January 13.
The letter from the groups to President-elect Barack Obama is below and can also be found online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/…
More information on the ACLU’s work to close Guantánamo can be found online at: www.aclu.org
January 12, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama
Obama-Biden Transition Project
Washington, DC 20720Dear President-elect Obama:
We write to you regarding Omar Khadr, the 22-year-old Canadian national slated to be tried by military commission at Guantánamo for crimes allegedly committed when he was aged 15. If the trial, now scheduled for January 26, 2009, is allowed to go forward, Omar Khadr will become the first person in recent years to be tried by any western nation for war crimes allegedly committed as a child.
We urge that upon taking office, you act quickly to suspend the military commissions, drop the military commission charges against Khadr, and either repatriate him for rehabilitation in Canada or transfer him to federal court and prosecute him in accordance with international juvenile justice and fair trial standards.
Background
United States forces captured Khadr on July 27, 2002, after a firefight in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of US Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, as well as injuries to other soldiers. Khadr, who was seriously wounded, was initially detained at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. There, according to his lawyers, he was forced into painful stress positions, threatened with rape, and hooded and confronted with barking dogs.
In October 2002, US officers transported Khadr to Guantánamo, where the abusive interrogations continued, and where he has been ever since. Khadr told his lawyers that his interrogators shackled him in painful positions, threatened to send him to Egypt, Syria, or Jordan for torture, and used him as a “human mop” after he urinated on the floor during one interrogation session. He was not allowed to meet with a lawyer until November 2004, more than two years after he was first captured.
During his third year of detention, Khadr was charged with murder and other related crimes under the first set of military commissions authorized by President Bush. Those charges were dismissed when the Supreme Court ruled the commissions unlawful in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In 2007, under newly authorized commissions, the United States government charged him with murder, attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. He faces a possible life prison sentence.
Violations of Human Rights and Juvenile Justice Standards
Khadr’s prolonged detention in Guantánamo Bay contravenes the United States’ binding legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and international juvenile justice standards. Although these international standards allow for detention of juveniles only as a last resort and require prompt determination of juvenile cases, Khadr was detained for more than two years before being provided access to an attorney, and for more than three years before being charged before the first military commission. After more than six years the lawfulness of this detention still has not been judicially reviewed on the merits.
Further, despite international standards requiring treatment of children in accordance with their age, as well as segregation of children and adults, Khadr has been housed with adult detainees, even when other child detainees were being housed together in Guantánamo’s Camp Iguana. The abusive interrogations and prolonged detention in solitary confinement violated both international juvenile justice standards and general humane treatment standards, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and other binding prohibitions against torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Failure to Comply with Obligations under the Optional Protocol
International law requires the United States to recognize the special situation of children who have been recruited or used in armed conflict. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (”Optional Protocol”), which the United States ratified in 2002, explicitly prohibits the recruitment or use of children under the age of 18 in armed conflict by non-state armed groups and requires state parties to criminalize such conduct. It also requires the rehabilitation of former child soldiers within a signatory’s jurisdiction, including “all appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social reintegration.”
Yet in its dealings with Khadr, the US government has ignored its legal obligations under the Optional Protocol. For years, Khadr was denied access to education, vocational training, counseling, or any family contact. Instead, he was held in isolation and abused.
Last May, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which oversees compliance with the Optional Protocol, criticized the United States’ treatment and military prosecutions of children held at Guantánamo, and called on the US government to treat children in its custody in accordance with international juvenile justice standards.
Military Trial Moving Ahead
Despite widespread criticism of the military commission system and its treatment of Omar Khadr, the outgoing Bush administration has continued to move his case toward trial. Motions hearings are now set for January 19, with a trial date scheduled for January 26. Unless you act quickly to suspend the commissions, Khadr will become the first person in recent history to be prosecuted for war crimes allegedly committed as a child, before a system that you have consistently criticized as “flawed.”
As you are aware, you voted against the legislation passed by Congress in October 2006 to authorize the commissions, calling it a “betrayal of American values.” When charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 9/11 co-conspirators were announced in February 2008, you criticized that decision on the grounds that “[t]hese trials are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system” and that the men should be tried in federal court or by courts-martial, in order to “demonstrate our commitment to the rule of law.” Just five months ago, after the conviction of Salim Hamdan, you reiterated your criticism of the commission process, stating it is “time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
You have also co-sponsored legislation (the Child Soldier Prevention Act, S. 1175, which was subsequently incorporated into the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, and the Child Soldier Accountability Act, S. 2135) designed to help end the use of child soldiers. These measures, both signed into law in 2008, commit the US government to expand services to rehabilitate child soldiers and reintegrate them back into their communities, and allow the United States to prosecute the individuals responsible for the recruitment of children as soldiers.
Now is the chance to ensure America’s commitment to the rule of law by putting an immediate halt to Omar Khadr’s trial. If there is evidence that Khadr committed a federal crime, he should be transferred to a federal court and prosecuted in accordance with international juvenile justice and fair trial standards; if not, he should be repatriated for rehabilitation and integration.
This is also the course you should take with the other known juvenile detainee, Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan, who has been in Guantánamo for six years, reportedly subjected to torture, sleep deprivation, and other abuse, and charged with attempted murder by the military commission for acts allegedly committed when he was either 16 or 17 years old. No trial date is currently set in his case.
We hope that you will act quickly on this matter in the interest of justice, protection of human rights, and the rule of law.
Sincerely,
American Civil Liberties Union
Amnesty International
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
Human Rights First
Human Rights Watchcc:
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Eric Holder
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Makes perfect sense coming from this ass-backward country of ours, where “pro-life” means opposition to choice yet full-fledged support for the death penalty; where the “new evangelicals” boast of their efforts to save the planet yet continue to applaud irresponsible litter-breeders like the Duggars for overpopulating same; where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.
Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.
Four blue pills. Viagra.
“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills. …
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NEW YORK — December 17, 2008 — More than half of the world’s remaining “sodomy” laws — criminalizing consensual homosexual conduct — are relics of British colonial rule, Human Rights Watch showed in a report published today. Human Rights Watch urged governments everywhere to affirm international human rights standards, and reject the oppressive legacies of colonialism, by repealing laws that criminalize consensual sexual activity among adults of the same sex.
The 66-page report, “This Alien Legacy: The Origins of ‘Sodomy’ Laws in British Colonialism,” describes how laws in over three dozen countries, from India to Uganda and from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860. This year, the High Court in Delhi ended hearings in a years-long case seeking to decriminalize homosexual conduct there. A ruling in the landmark case is expected soon.
“Half the world’s countries that criminalize homosexual conduct do so because they cling to Victorian morality and colonial laws,” said Scott Long, director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch. “Getting rid of these unjust remnants of the British Empire is long overdue.”
On December 18, 2008, the UN General Assembly will hear a statement signed by over 60 countries affirming that human rights protections include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Some national leaders have defended sodomy laws as reflections of indigenous cultures. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, for example, has called gays and lesbians “un-African” and “worse than dogs and pigs.” The Human Rights Watch report shows, however, that British colonial rulers brought in these laws because they saw the conquered cultures as morally lax on sexuality. The British also wanted to defend their own colonists against the “corrupting” effect of the colonies. One British viceroy of India warned that British soldiers could succumb to “replicas of Sodom and Gomorrah” as they acquired the “special Oriental vices.”
In the early 19th century, the British drafted a new model Indian Penal Code, finally put into force in 1860. Section 377 punished “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” with up to life imprisonment.
Versions of Section 377 spread across the British Empire, from Africa to Southeast Asia. Through it, British colonists imposed one view on sexuality, by force, on all their colonized peoples. Over time, these laws came to seek punishment against not particular acts but whole classes of people. The British, for instance, listed “eunuchs” - their term for India’s hijras, or transgender people - as a “criminal tribe” because they were prone to “sodomy.” Simply for appearing in public, hijras could be arrested and jailed for up to two years.
Today, international human rights standards have compelled former colonial powers to acknowledge that these laws are wrong. England and Wales decriminalized homosexual conduct in 1967. The European Court of Human Rights found in 1981 that a surviving sodomy law in Northern Ireland violated fundamental rights protections. In 1994, the UN Human Rights Committee — which authoritatively interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) — held that sodomy laws violate the rights to privacy and to non-discrimination.
The laws nonetheless persist in many of Britain’s old colonial possessions. Moreover, the model British-era sodomy law made no distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex, or between sex among adults and sexual abuse of children. As a result, these surviving laws leave many rape victims and child victims of abuse without effective legal protection.
“From Malaysia to Uganda, governments use these laws to harass civil society, restrict free expression, discredit enemies, and destroy lives,” Long said. “And sodomy laws add to the spread of HIV/AIDS by criminalizing outreach to affected groups.”
Colonies and countries that retain versions of this British sodomy law include:
• In Asia and the Pacific: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, India, Kiribati, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Myanmar (Burma), Nauru, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Western Samoa. (Governments that inherited the same British law, but have abolished it since include: Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.)
• In Africa: Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Eleven former British colonies in the Caribbean also retain sodomy laws derived from a different British model than the one imposed on India.
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Dear Catholics: Before you get all huffy and submit that nasty comment:
1. I’m an ex-Catholic (by choice, not excommunication — yet), so I get to say whatever I want about the Catholic church. (I’d have the right anyway, but lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, I was you, so challenging my Catholic cred is a waste of your time.)
2. There’s no other way to read the Vatican statement than the way it’s summed up in the following headline — I couldn’t say it better myself:
Vatican would rather gay people
were executed than married(and it doesn’t want disabled people to be protected, either, in case it promotes abortion)
The full extent of the regressive nature of the Vatican under Ratzinger was made clear this week when it was revealed that the Vatican had opposed two United Nations resolutions aimed at protecting gay and disabled people from discrimination and death.
When France proposed a resolution seeking all nations to decriminalise homosexuality, the Vatican immediately said it would oppose the resolution. This is despite the fact that up to 70 nations still have legal punishments for gay people including, in some instances, the death penalty. In a number of Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, homosexual acts are still a capital offence.
The UN resolution is due to be proposed by France later this month on behalf of the 27-nation European Union. But Archbishop Celestino Migliore said the Vatican opposed the resolution because it would “add new categories of those protected from discrimination” and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage. …
A strongly worded editorial in Italy’s mainstream La Stampa newspaper said the Vatican’s reasoning was “grotesque”.
Franco Grillini, founder and honorary president of Arcigay, Italy’s leading gay rights group, said the Vatican’s reasoning smacked of “total idiocy and madness”. Mr Grillini said the resolution had nothing to do with gay marriage, but was aimed at stopping the execution of gay people in Islamic countries.
An editorial in Rome’s left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper said the Vatican’s position “leaves one dumbstruck”. Margherita Boniver, a leading member of Italy’s leftist Democratic Party, called it “alarmingly anachronistic”.
The gay rights activist, Grillini, said he feared what he called another “Holy Alliance” between the Vatican and Islamic states at the United Nations to oppose the proposed resolution. …
Meh, I’m not at all “dumbstruck” — it’s nothing more or less than I’d expect from the Holy Roman Inquisitors.
But — oh, yeah — it is indeed “grotesque” “idiocy and madness.”
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“Despite this being a biological impossibility for this couple, the natural desire is still there.”
No, this isn’t some made-up junk from a British tabloid; it’s true — I checked it out with numerous reputable news sources. It’s truly a sad story — but raises questions about the decision of officials to segregate the pair from the rest of the population (which doesn’t surprise us; this is China, after all).
In any case, do try to have some sympathy:
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No, we’re not being sarcastic at all. “Traditional marriage” doesn’t get any more “traditional” than this:
Second Victim Dies After
New Jersey Church ShootingA second person has died after a shooting in a New Jersey church on Sunday morning, but the man suspected of being the gunman had not been found, the authorities said on Monday.
The suspect, Joseph Pallipurath, 27, of Sacramento, drove cross-country in a green Jeep to confront his estranged wife, Reshma James, 24, who had sought refuge with relatives in New Jersey, said Detective Capt. Robert Rowan of the Clifton, N.J., police. Mr. Pallipurath barged into St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church just before noon and confronted his wife in the vestibule, the authorities said.
When she refused to leave with him, he shot her, one of her relatives and another man in their heads with a silver handgun, the police said. …
The police and friends and family of the victims said the shooting was the culmination of an arranged marriage that had quickly turned stormy. The couple were married a year ago in India, where Ms. James, a registered nurse, grew up. She joined Mr. Pallipurath, an American, in Sacramento in January…
What say you, “defenders” of “traditional marriage”? Or are you just going to dismiss a time-honored marriage “tradition” of a branch of Christianity more genuinely and literally Judeo-Christian than (and which pre-dates) your particular flavor of “Christianity”?
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Nepal SC approves same-sex marriage In a landmark verdict, the apex court in Nepal has given its consent to same-sex marriages, a move that beats off social taboos in the conservative valley.
The apex court on Monday directed the Maoist-led government in Nepal to formulate necessary laws to guarantee full rights to gays, including right to same-sex marriage.
“The court has instructed the government against making any discrimination on the basis of sex. This is a landmark decision for the sexual minorities and we welcome it,” Sunil Babu Panta, a leading gay activist in South Asia and Nepal’s only lawmaker in the Constituent Assembly representing the community, said.
“The court ordered the government to form a seven member committee to formulate laws that recognize same-sex marriages in European countries, ending all types of discriminations against gays and lesbians,” Panta said. …
I’ll skip the obvious comment about how every USian should be hanging his head in shame, and just celebrate this amazing victory for our brothers and sisters half a world away: Congratulations, Nepal!
Related:
Public Lesbian Wedding in Queer-Hating Nepal
September 13, 2007
If you thought getting left in the dust by South Africa was bad…
December 21, 2007
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Korea Times:
Gay Actor Found Dead in Apparent Suicide Actor Kim Ji-who was found dead in his house in an apparent suicide, police said Wednesday, the fourth suicide by an entertainer in just one month.
Songpa Police Station confirmed the 23-year-old hung himself at his home in Jamsil, southern Seoul, Monday.
Police said they found a suicide note at the scene, saying, “I’m lonely and in a difficult situation. Please cremate my body.” …
“Given the note and testimony from his family members, we believe he apparently committed suicide,” a police officer said.
Police said his suicide reflects public prejudice toward gay people and their difficulty in succeeding in the entertainment industry.
Following the announcement of his sexual orientation, Kim’s management agency did not renew his contract and many TV programs and fashion shows cancelled his appearances. His blog was bombarded with numerous messages denouncing his sexual orientation.
“He underwent many professional and personal difficulties following his coming-out,” Kim’s mother said…
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BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — October 6 — Lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men face violent abuse, including rape, in Kyrgyzstan, both in family settings and from strangers on the street, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued today. The report calls on the Kyrgyz government to acknowledge the problem and protect the victims, and on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other European institutions to step up their response to violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Based on detailed interviews, the 49-page report, “These Everyday Humiliations: Violence Against Lesbians, Bisexual Women, and Transgender Men in Kyrgyzstan,” tells of beatings, forced marriages, and physical and psychological abuse faced by lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men. The government refuses to protect them or to confront the atmosphere of prejudice in which the attacks take place.
“No one should have to confront brutality or danger because of who they are or whom they love,” said Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “It is time for the government to protect these communities instead of denying they exist.”
The report notes that the OSCE, which conducts programs in Kyrgyzstan, works to combat hate crimes and identity-based violence throughout Europe. However, the United States and the Holy See have blocked including sexual orientation in its mandate.
Several people interviewed for the report said they had been raped to punish them for not conforming to gender norms, or to “cure” them of their difference. One lesbian told how, when she was 15, her girlfriend’s brothers raped her brutally, saying: “This is your punishment for being this way and hanging around our sister.”
Another woman told Human Rights Watch that an acquaintance locked her in a room and allowed several men to rape her. The men promised the acquaintance “that they would help her to ‘cure’ me” of being a lesbian, she said.
Pervasive social prejudice in the Central Asian country leaves the victims with little hope of government protection, the report says. The police themselves sometimes abuse lesbian and bisexual women and transgender men. Police have also raided and harassed organizations that defend the basic rights of these groups.
In all of Kyrgyzstan, only one shelter for survivors of domestic violence — run by a nongovernmental organization — offers specific services for lesbians or transgender people.
A sweeping law passed in 2003 should protect all victims of domestic violence. However, the report found that much more needs to be done to carry out the law, including training criminal justice officials to investigate domestic violence and educating the general public about the law’s provisions.
The government has ignored the need to address issues of sexual orientation or gender identity. In some cases, officials have actually endorsed hatred and violence. In 2005, a Ministry of Interior official said of lesbians and gay men at a human rights roundtable: “I would also beat them. Let’s say I walk in a park with my son. And there are two guys walking holding each other’s hands. I would beat them up too.”
While Kyrgyzstan has made efforts to respond to violence against women overall, some groups are still ignored or excluded. Human Rights Watch called on Kyrgyz authorities to improve direct services for lesbians and transgender men; to train state officials in issues of sexual orientation and gender identity; to educate the public about domestic violence and sexual-rights issues, and to create measures for legal identity change to respect and recognize each person’s self-defined gender identity.
Human Rights Watch also urged the OSCE to address human rights issues, including discrimination and violence against lesbians and transgender men, in its trainings for police and other programs in Kyrgyzstan.
“Programs to stop violence will not work unless they reach everyone who is vulnerable,” Dittrich said. “Europe should not join Kyrgyzstan’s government in turning a blind eye.”
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A strong, beautiful endorsement of love and equality from the venerable, award-winning India Currents:
… Instead of viewing marriage equality as an attack on family values, as many anti-marriage forces have tried to frame the issue, we must recognize that the formation of families based on freedom of choice is the most important way to strengthen the family unit. Establishing marriage equality, in the end, is about the right to establish families on personal terms. Marriage, and the establishment of a family, should not be dictated by government authorities, but rather by the individuals and families involved. Leaving the parameters of family life to be governed by an outside authority leaves any non-traditional family unit at risk, even the multi-generational families established by many South Asians. …According to the 2000 United States Census, as reported by a 2005 study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, four percent of all same-sex couples in California have at least one partner who identifies as ethnically Indian.
For the South Asian community and other communities of color across the United States, this year holds important significance. 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of Perez vs. Sharp, a landmark decision in the California Supreme Court that gave “non-white” Americans and “white” Americans legal license to wed. Before the decision was made, polls showed that, if put to a ballot, interracial marriages would have been voted against by approximately 80 percent of voters. Today many couples are denied that same basic right—freedom to live, love and be recognized equally under the law. We cannot allow basic civil rights to be denied by a majority vote.
As a community devoted to the institution of marriage and the establishment of family, let us not stand in the way of the expansion of this necessary civil right to the entirety of American society.
More at the link.
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We wouldn’t be surprised if it were true — after all, Saddam Hussein was thought to have had a number of doubles while he was still alive, and North Korea is so hung up on illusion, we wouldn’t put it past the crazies who run the country:
Kim Jong-Il ‘died in 2003′ He doesn’t appear in public very often so it’s difficult to verify but there are allegations today that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il has in fact been dead for five years.
A Japanese expert on North Korea is claiming that the role of the “Dear Leader” has instead been played by a group of doubles since 2003, when he says the President died of diabetes. …
The fake Kims are said to be the wrong height and are always shadowed by one of four senior military figures.
“A Japanese TV station checked his voice print four years ago and the result was the voice was different, the former Kim Jong-Il and now Kim Jong-Il, so there are questions,” Professor Shigemura said. …
This would mean that the world, including Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao, have been negotiating with an impostor. …
The best chance to test the theory could come tomorrow when Kim Jong-Il is due to appear at a military parade celebrating 60 years since the founding of North Korea. …
More at the link.
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