Bahrain’s court of appeal should overturn a lower court conviction for illegal assembly against the human rights activist Nabeel Rajab and cancel his three-year prison term, according to a recent Human Rights Watch press release. Because the authorities have presented no evidence that he advocated or participated in violence, his conviction is a violation of his right to freedom of peaceful assembly, Human Rights Watch said. The court was scheduled to hear Rajab’s appeal on October 16, 2012, but the appellate court postponed the hearing and denied a petition filed by Rajab’s lawyer challenging the legality of the laws prohibiting demonstrations. A new hearing has been scheduled for December 11, 2012.
A criminal court sentenced Rajab on August 16 to three years in prison for organizing and participating in three demonstrations between January and March 2012. Rajab is president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a member of the advisory committee of the Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Division.“The criminal court verdict cites no evidence – not even an allegation– that Nabeel Rajab participated in or advocated violent protests,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “He has the basic right to peaceful assembly and shouldn’t be sent to prison for that.”
The Public Prosecution Office charged Rajab under article 178 of the Penal Code, which prohibits unauthorized gatherings of five or more people in a public place with the “purpose of committing crimes” or “undermining public security, even if intended to achieve legitimate purpose.”
A public prosecution official told Bahraini media that that Rajab had incited violence. The government also posted videos of some protests on YouTube, claiming, “You will find…defendant Nabeel Rajab violating the law.” Those videos appear to confirm that the protests were peaceful and do not capture any incitement to violence by Rajab or otherwise support the allegation made by the public prosecutor.
No such evidence is cited in the court’s verdicts in the three cases. In the case numbered 07291204947, police testified that after they dispersed an “illegal demonstration” on January 12, some people threw stones and Molotov cocktails at “special forces” and blocked the road with metal containers. One officer testified that he saw Rajab leading a march of 10 to 15 people “chanting for the release of political detainees.” But the verdict cites no evidence suggesting that Rajab was involved in the violence that police alleged occurred or that he incited such acts.
In the case numbered 07201203460, according to the verdict, about 15 people including Rajab had organized in a march on an unspecified date in February and that the protesters, except Rajab and three others, dispersed when police ordered them to. Police then arrested Rajab and allegedly found messages on his mobile phone calling “for participation in unlicensed marches, including the march at which he was arrested.” The verdict contains no conclusion that any crime or public security disturbance had occurred and does not cite any evidence for reaching such a conclusion.
The verdict in the case numbered 07201205263 stated that Rajab had called for and participated in an unauthorized gathering of about 50 people on March 31. The court said the protesters did not respond to orders to disperse, but the verdict does not mention any public disturbance, violent activity, or incitement to violence by Rajab or anyone else.
Authorities have previously prosecuted Rajab on politically motivated charges. He was detained from May 5 to May 28 for Twitter remarks criticizing the Interior Ministry for failing to investigate attacks by what Rajab said were pro-government armed gangs against Shia residents. On June 28 a criminal court fined him 300 Bahraini Dinars (US$790) in that case. A court of appeal will review the verdict on November 27.
Authorities again detained Rajab on June 6 for another Twitter remark calling for the prime minister to step down. On July 9 a criminal court convicted and sentenced him to three months in prison. A court of appeal overturned that verdict on August 23, but Rajab remained in prison following the August 16 convictions.
Bahraini authorities have given permits for some opposition rallies over the past year, but a great number of applications for permits have been denied, Human Rights Watch said.
“It is hard to avoid concluding that Nabeel Rajab’s convictions and three-year sentence for illegal assembly represent politically motivated punishment for his insistence on exercising rights that are protected both by international treaties to which Bahrain is a party and Bahrain’s constitution,” Stork said. “The appeals court should vacate the convictions and free him immediately.”
My journey into the dark underworld of the US military begins on a rainy Tuesday morning in March 2008, with a visit to Tampa, Florida. I am here to meet Forrest Fogarty, an American patriot who served in the US army for two years in Iraq. Fogarty is also a white supremacist of the serious Hitler-worshipping type.
We meet in his favorite hangout, the Winghouse Bar & Grill. In our brief phone call, I’d asked how I would recognize him. “Just look for the skinhead with the tattoos,” he said. And sure enough, sitting straight to my right as I walk in is a youngish-looking man, plastered in tattoos, with cropped hair and bulging biceps. “You’re British, right,” he says, as we order. “I remember seeing black guys with British accents in Iraq, shit was so crazy.”
Fogarty tells me he was bullied at his LA high school by Mexican and African-American children, and was just 14 when he decided he wanted to be a Nazi. He has no qualms about flaunting his prejudice. When black people come into the bar, he emits a hiss of disapproval. “I just don’t want to be around them,” he tells me. “I don’t want to look at them, I don’t want them near me.”
As a young man, Fogarty was obsessed with Ian Stuart Donaldson, the legendary singer in the British band Skrewdriver, who is hero-worshipped in the neo-Nazi music scene. At 16, he had an image from one of Skrewdriver’s album covers – a Viking carrying an axe, an icon among white nationalists – tattooed on his left forearm. Soon after, he had a Celtic cross, an Irish symbol appropriated by neo-Nazis, emblazoned on his stomach. A few years later, he started his own band, Attack, now one of the biggest Nazi bands in the US. But it was never his day job. “I was a landscaper when I left school,” he says. “I kind of fell into it. I didn’t give a shit what I was doing, I was just drinking and fighting.”
For the next eight years he drifted through jobs in construction and landscaping, and began hanging out with the National Alliance, at the time one of the biggest neo-Nazi organizations in the US. He soon became a member. He had always seen himself as a fighter and warrior, so he resolved to do what two generations of Fogartys had done before him: join the military.
Fogarty was not the first extremist to enter the armed forces. The neo-Nazi movement has had a long and tense relationship with the US military. Since its inception, the leaders of the white supremacist movement have encouraged their members to enlist. They see it as a way for their followers to receive combat and weapons training, courtesy of the US government, and then to bring what they learn home to undertake a domestic race war. Not all far-right groups subscribe to this vision – some, such as the Ku Klux Klan, claim to prefer a democratic approach – but a large portion see themselves as insurrectionary forces. To that end, professional training in warfare is a must.
The US military has long been aware of these groups’ attempts at infiltration, but it wasn’t until 1996 that supremacist and neo-Nazi groups were specifically banned from the military, after the murder in 1995 of two African-Americans by a neo-Nazi paratrooper stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Fogarty was recruited the year after.
He knew that the tattoo he had riding up his forearm could be a problem when it came to enlistment. In a neo-Nazi underworld obsessed with secrecy, racist tattoos remain one of the clearest indicators of extremism for a recruiter, and in an effort to police the matter, the US military requires recruits to explain any tattoos. “They just told me to write an explanation of each tattoo and I made up some stuff and that was that,” he says.
Soon after Fogarty was approved, his ex-girlfriend and mother of his eldest child contacted the military. According to Fogarty, she sent a dossier of pictures to his military command that showed him at white supremacist and neo-Nazi rallies, as well as performing his racist rock with Attack. “They hauled me before some sort of committee, and showed me the pictures. I just denied it.” The committee, he says, “knew what I was about, but they let it go because I’m a great soldier”.
Fogarty remained in the reserves, until finally, in 2004, he was sent where he had always wanted to go: Iraq. Before he left for the Middle East, he joined the Hammerskin Nation – described by the Anti-Defamation League as the “the most violent and best-organised neo-Nazi skinhead group in the United States”.
Fogarty maintains that a good portion of those around him were aware of his neo-Nazism. “They all knew in my unit,” he says. “They would always kid around and say, ‘Hey, you’re that skinhead!’” He was confident enough of his carte blanche from the military that during his break from service in 2004, he flew not to see his family in the US but to Dresden, Germany, to give a concert to 2,500 skinheads, on the army’s budget.
When he was at Camp Victory in Baghdad, Fogarty even says a sergeant came up to him and said, “You’re one of those racist motherfuckers, aren’t you?” I ask how the sergeant knew about his racism. “The tattoo, I suppose. I can’t hide everything – people knew, even the chain of command.”
Another white supremacist soldier, James Douglas Ross, a military intelligence officer stationed at Fort Bragg, was given a bad conduct discharge from the army when he was caught trying to mail a sub-machine gun from Iraq to his father’s home in Spokane, Washington. Military police found a cache of white supremacist paraphernalia and several weapons hidden behind ceiling tiles in Ross’s military quarters. After his discharge, a Spokane County deputy sheriff saw Ross passing out fliers for the neo-Nazi National Alliance. And in early 2012, a photo emerged of a 10-strong US marine scout sniper unit posing for a photo with a Nazi SS bolts flag in Sangin, Afghanistan.
According to the military, the symbolism was unknown to the soldiers. “Certainly, the use of the ‘SS runes’ is not acceptable and scout snipers have been addressed concerning this issue,” marine corps spokesman Captain Gregory Wolf said.
The magnitude of the problem within the military is hard to quantify. The military does not track extremists as a discrete category, coupling them with gang members, and those in the neo-Nazi movement claim different numbers. The National Socialist Movement claimed 190 of its members are inside. White Revolution claimed 12. In white supremacist incidents from 2001 to 2008, the FBI identified 203 veterans. Because the FBI focused only on reported cases, its numbers don’t include the many extremist soldiers who have managed to stay off the radar. But its report does pinpoint why the white supremacist movements seek to recruit veterans – they “may exploit their accesses to restricted areas and intelligence or apply specialized training in weapons, tactics, and organizational skills to benefit the extremist movement”.
The report found that two army privates in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg had attempted in 2007 to sell stolen property from the military – including ballistic vests, a combat helmet, and pain medications such as morphine – to an undercover FBI agent they believed was involved with the white supremacist movement (they were convicted and sentenced to six years in prison). It also found multiple examples of white supremacist recruitment among active military personnel, including a period in 2003 when six active-duty soldiers at Fort Riley were found to be members of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations, working to recruit their army colleagues and even serving as the Aryan Nations’ point of contact for the State of Kansas.
The degree of impunity encountered by Fogarty and countless other extremists has caused tensions within the military. The blind eye turned by the recruiters angered many investigators whose integrity was being compromised. Hunter Glass was a paratrooper in the 1980s and became a gang cop in 1999 in Fairville, North Carolina, next to Fort Bragg. “In the 1990s, the military was hard on them, they could pick and choose,” he recalls. The change came after 9/11. “The key rule nowadays is ignore it until it becomes a problem,” Glass tells me. “We need manpower. So as long as the man isn’t acting out, let’s blow it off.” He recounts one episode in early 2005 when he was requested by military police investigators at Fort Bragg to interview a soldier with blatant skinhead insignia – SS lightning bolts and hammers. Glass worked with the base’s military police investigators, who filed a report. “They recommended that he be kicked out,” he recalls, “but the commanding officers didn’t do anything.” He says there was an open culture of impunity. “We’re seeing guys with tattoos all the time … As far as hunting them down, I don’t see it. I’m seeing the opposite, where if a white supremacist has committed a crime, the military stance will be, ‘He didn’t commit a race-related crime.’ “
By 2005, the US had 150,000 troops deployed in Iraq and 19,500 in Afghanistan. But the military wasn’t prepared in any way for this kind of extended deployment – and just two years into the war in Iraq, people were talking openly about the fact that it had reached breaking point. The slim forces needed fattening up and what followed constituted a complete re-evaluation of who was qualified to serve – a full-works facelift of the service unheard of in modern American history. In the relatively halcyon days of the first Gulf war in 1990, the US military blocked the enlistment of felons. It spurned men and women with low IQs or those without a high school diploma. It would either block the enlistment of or kick out neo-Nazis and gang members. It would treat or discharge alcoholics, drug abusers and the mentally ill. No more. While the Bush administration adopted conservative policies pretty much universally, it saved its ration of liberalism for the US military, where it scrapped many of the regulations governing recruitment.
Many of the wars’ worst atrocities are linked directly to the loosening of enlistment regulations on criminals, racist extremists, and gang members, among others. Then there are the effects on the troops themselves. Lowering standards on intelligence and body weight, for example, compromised the military’s operational readiness and undoubtedly endangered the lives of US and allied troops. Hundreds of soldiers may have paid with their lives for this folly.
On the ground and screaming that he was “sorry,” a shirtless Kelly Thomas is shown being hit again and again with fists, a baton and finally the butt of a stun gun by Fullerton police officers in a dramatic video that was shown for the first time on 8 May 2012 in an Orange County courtroom.
The grainy black and white video of Thomas’ violent encounter with police outside a bus depot is the centerpiece of the prosecutions’ case against two officers accused of escalating a standard police encounter with a homeless man into a fatal beating.
At one point, Thomas — a 37-year-old mentally ill homeless man who was a familiar face in the city’s downtown — screams out: “Dad, they are killing me!”
The video and the sound of fists and a baton striking Thomas were so graphic that several spectators left the courtroom and the judge paused the video at one point after some people in the audience began to groan. He cautioned that those who couldn’t stomach the video should leave.
The case has rocked the north Orange County city, where scores of people have protested, staged memorials and even held a recent public birthday celebration for Thomas. During a press conference in announcing the charges, Orange County Dist. Atty Tony Rackauckas was brought to tears while discussing the case.
Two officers, Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, are charged in Kelly’s death. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Ramos, 38 is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter while Cicinelli, 40, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive force in connection with the July 5 beating of Thomas, who died five days later. If convicted, Ramos faces a potential life sentence; Cicinelli could get four years in prison.
The video, shot by a security camera at the bus depot, initially captures Thomas being detained by Ramos and Officer Joseph Wolfe. Thomas is uncooperative and Ramos appears to grow angry.
“See my fists?” Ramos says.
“Yeah,” Thomas replies. “What about ‘em?”
“They’re getting ready to f— you up,” Ramos says while sliding on a pair of latex gloves. The statements and the menacing acting of putting on the gloves, Rackauckas said the preliminary hearing, set the deadly encounter into motion.
An evidence photo of beating victim Kelly Thomas in hospital, as it was shown during a preliminary hearing on his death in court in Santa Ana. (Photo: Reuters/ Joshua Sudock/Pool).
Thomas can be heard repeatedly saying “sorry” as Ramos and Wolfe strike him, instructing him to put his hands behind his back. “I am sorry, dude, I can’t breathe, dude,” he says at one point.
One of the two officers can be seen kneeing Thomas at least once, though some of the activity is obscured by a tree.
“I cannot breathe, man,” Thomas says at another point as Wolfe tells him to relax.
When Cicinelli arrives and tells Thomas to stop resisting, the audio captures the sound of a Taser stun gun clicking rapidly as the homeless man growls in pain, his legs seeming to twitch.
At one point, it appears that Cicinelli raises his arm and smacks Thomas in the face or head with the butt of the Taser.
Cicinelli later says, “we ran out of options so I got the end of my Taser and I probably … I just smashed his face to hell. He’s on something, dude…. Three of us couldn’t even control him.”
By the time the confrontation ends, Thomas is lying in a pool of blood. Officers then examine their own wounds as they stand near Thomas, who is handcuffed and on the ground. “You are covered in blood, dude,” one officer can be heard saying to Ramos, who claimed Thomas bit him on the leg.
Cicinelli adds: “He is the one you’re gonna need to look at.”
Thomas suffered brain injuries, a shattered nose, a smashed cheekbone, broken ribs and internal bleeding, according to authorities. But he died of “mechanical compression of the thorax” — his windpipe was crushed.
But attorneys for the two officers sought to portray his medical treatment as the reason for Thomas’ death rather than the officers’ actions.
John Barnett, Michael Ramos’ attorney, asked the fire captain and a trauma surgical chief about whether the initial doctors at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton struggled to insert a tube and clear an airway for him.
“The cause of death might be the treatment he got the hospital?” Barnett asked UC Irvine surgical trauma chief Michael Lekawa, seeking to persuade a judge to dismiss a murder and manslaughter charge against his client.
Lekawa acknowledged that he was concerned about medical error until he saw the medical reports and video of the incident.
Thomas’ father, Ron Thomas, said the hardest part of the video and audio “is the sounds of my son calling out.”
California is set for a major debate on the death penalty following qualification Monday of a November ballot measure that would replace capital punishment with a life term without possibility of parole.
If passed, the measure would make California the 18th state in the nation without a death penalty. During the last five years, four states have replaced the death penalty and Connecticut is soon to follow.
Growing numbers of conservatives in California have joined the effort to repeal the state’s capital punishment law, expressing frustration with its price tag and the rarity of executions. California has executed 13 inmates in 23 years, and prisoners are far more likely to die of old age on death row than by the executioner’s needle.
November’s ballot measure would commute the sentences of more than 700 people on death row to life without possibility of parole, a term that would then become the state’s most severe form of criminal punishment.
Most death row inmates would be returned to the general prison population and be expected to work. Their earnings would go to crime victims.
Worth noting: A ban on the death penalty is expected to save the state billions of dollars in the future. A recent study estimates that California has spent over $4 billion dollars on capital punishment since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978.
The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan’s Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held — and others squatted beside — the corpse’s severed legs.
A few months later, the same platoon was dispatched to investigate the remains of three insurgents who Afghan police said had accidentally blown themselves up. After obtaining a few fingerprints, they posed next to the remains, again grinning and mugging for photographs.
Two soldiers posed holding a dead man’s hand with the middle finger raised. A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man’s hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading “Zombie Hunter” next to other remains and took a picture.
The Army launched a criminal investigation after the Los Angeles Times showed officials copies of the photos, which recently were given to the paper by a soldier from the division.
“It is a violation of Army standards to pose with corpses for photographs outside of officially sanctioned purposes,” said George Wright, an Army spokesman. “Such actions fall short of what we expect of our uniformed service members in deployed areas.”
Wright said that after the investigation, the Army would “take appropriate action” against those involved. Most of the soldiers in the photos have been identified, said Lt. Col. Margaret Kageleiry, an Army spokeswoman.
The photos have emerged at a particularly sensitive moment for U.S.-Afghan relations. In January, a video appeared on the Internet showing four U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. In February, the inadvertent burning of copies of the Koran at a U.S. base triggered riots that left 30 dead and led to the deaths of six Americans. In March, a U.S. Army sergeant went on a nighttime shooting rampage in two Afghan villages, killing 17.
The soldier who provided The Times with a series of 18 photos of soldiers posing with corpses did so on condition of anonymity. He served in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne’s 4th Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Bragg, N.C. He said the photos point to a breakdown in leadership and discipline that he believed compromised the safety of the troops.
He expressed the hope that publication would help ensure that alleged security shortcomings at two U.S. bases in Afghanistan in 2010 were not repeated. The brigade, under new command but with some of the same paratroopers who served in 2010, began another tour in Afghanistan in February.
U.S. military officials asked The Times not to publish any of the pictures.
Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said the conduct depicted “most certainly does not represent the character and the professionalism of the great majority of our troops in Afghanistan…. Nevertheless, this imagery — more than two years old — now has the potential to indict them all in the minds of local Afghans, inciting violence and perhaps causing needless casualties.”
Kirby added, “We have taken the necessary precautions to protect our troops in the event of any backlash.”
The news from India’s 2011 census is almost all heartening. Literacy is up; life expectancy is up; family size is stabilizing. But there is one grim exception. In 2011 India counted only 914 girls aged six and under for every 1,000 boys.
Without intervention, just a few more boys would be born than girls. If you compare the number of girls actually born to the number that would have been born had a normal sex ratio prevailed, then 600,000 Indian girls go missing every year. This is less distorted than the sex ratio in China, but whereas China’s ratio has stabilized, India’s is widening, and has been for decades. Sex selection is now invading parts of the country that used not to practice it.
India’s sex ratio shows that gendercide is a feature not just of dictatorship and poverty. Unlike China, India is a democracy: there is no one-child policy to blame. Although parts of the country are poor, poverty alone does not explain India’s preference for sons. The states with the worst sex ratios—Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat—are among the richest (see article), which suggests distorted sex selection will not be corrected just by wealth or government policy. But it can be corrected.
Parents choose to abort female fetuses not because they do not want or love their daughters, but because they feel they must have sons (usually for social reasons); they also want smaller families—and something has to give. Ultrasound technology ensures that this something is a generation of unborn daughters, because it lets them know the sex of a fetus. Sex selection therefore tends to increase with education and income: wealthier, better educated people are more likely to want fewer children and can more easily afford the scans.
But whereas sex selection may be understandable for a family, it is disastrous for a nation. It is an extreme expression of an attitude that says daughters are worth less than sons—a belief that is damaging both to women and to the next generation, since healthier, better educated mothers have healthier, better-educated children.
If sex ratios stay the same, 600,000 missing girls this year will become, in 18 years’ time, over 10m missing future brides. Robbery, rape and bride-trafficking tend to increase in any society with large groups of young single men. And because in China and India men higher up the social ladder find wives more easily than those lower down, the social problems of bachelorhood tend to accumulate like silt among the poorest people and (in India) the lowest castes. This is unjust as well as damaging.
Jackie and Mike Bezos have donated a personal gift of $25,000 to "The RaiseForWomen challenge," a fundraising initiative supporting nonprofits doing work to empower women and girls around the world. The donation, combined with $75,000 from The Skoll Foundation, brings to $100,000 the total in prizes going to the causes that raise the most funds. Ja […]
We are thrilled to announce a very successful first week in the RaiseforWomen Challenge, with over $126,000 raised! We would like to thank everyone who has participated in the challenge so far. We have under five weeks left –– until June 6 –– to raise as much as possible! Half the Sky Movement will be giving out weekly prizes to individuals participating in […]
I remember reading Betty Harragan’s Games Mother Never Taught You when it first came out over thirty years ago. As a woman entrepreneur, that book had a huge impact on me — both in how to navigate at work, a new universe that felt like I had been dropped onto Mars, and how I saw myself as an agent of change. This was long before cell phones, the Internet, an […]
This week in Nebraska, a handful of senators – four in particular – used filibusters and frivolous amendments to stall a full debate on whether Nebraska is done with capital punishment. Why are these foes of justice running scared? Why were they afraid of having a real vote on the death penalty? You. That's why. Popular support for the death penalty has […]
Another day, another amendment to the Senate immigration reform legislation from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that would harm immigrants' civil liberties. Amendment 17, which will be up for consideration this week in the Senate Judiciary Committee's markup of the immigration reform bill, would unwisely (and unconstitutionally) restrict the ability […]
After two more long days last week of largely unsuccessful attempts to scuttle the immigration reform bill, the Senate Judiciary Committee now is looking at the gargantuan task of wrapping up consideration – somehow, some way – before the end of this week. On Tuesday, the Committee completed work on the border security section of the bill and then began cons […]
Headline Title: Historic Pride march in Moldova should be 'first of many' 20 May 2013 The Moldovan authorities must ensure that yesterday's historic Pride march in the capital Chisinau is the "first of many" and is followed up by other steps to combat homophobic discrimination, Amnesty International said today.Around 100 people part […]
Headline Title: Historic Pride march in Moldova should be 'first of many' 20 May 2013 The Moldovan authorities must ensure that yesterday's historic Pride march in the capital Chisinau is the "first of many" and is followed up by other steps to combat homophobic discrimination, Amnesty International said today.Around 100 people part […]
Headline Title: Georgia: Homophobic violence mars Tbilisi rally 17 May 2013 Police in the Georgian capital Tbilisi failed to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activists as thousands of people violently attacked a Pride event today in what Amnesty International said was an ineffective response to organized and violent homophobi […]
Tweet Widget Facebook Like Email The Afghan government should take urgent steps to halt an alarming increase in women and girls imprisoned for “moral crimes." (Kabul) – The Afghan government should take urgent steps to halt an alarming increase in women and girls imprisoned for “moral crimes,” Human Rights Watch said today. Commitments by senior govern […]
Tweet Widget Facebook Like Email Côte d’Ivoire’s government has made little progress in addressing root causes of the country’s decade of politico-military violence in the two years since President Alassane Ouattara’s inauguration on May 21, 2011. These problems threaten the country’s long-term stability despite a strong economic rebound. (Nairobi) – Côte d’ […]
Tweet Widget Facebook Like Email Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland should urge Russian leaders to end the crackdown on civil society groups during his visit to Russia. Jagland is in Moscow on May 19 to 22, 2013 for meetings with President Vladimir Putin and the Russian parliament. (Moscow) – Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn J […]
The U.S. Senate has confirmed Michael McShane to the Federal District Court in Oregon by voice vote. He is the first openly-gay man to serve as a federal judge in Oregon.
Today HRC president Chad Griffin released the following statement regarding a string of hate crimes in New York City, including the hate-motivated shooting death of Mark Carson this weekend.
Environmental factors are responsible for 23 percent of the overall global disease burden, according to World Health Organization research. Addressing such pollution could save the lives of 6 million women a year.
Much has changed in the world of comedy thanks to strong female voices since "They Used to Call Me Snow White . . . But I Drifted" was first released in 1991, says Gina Barreca in this updated version of the book.
Obama says that the U.S. military's sexual assaults are "dangerous to our national security." A mayor says the Japanese military's "comfort women" were necessary.
The United Nations human rights chief today welcomed the decision of dozens of international companies to sign on to an fire-and-safety agreement in the aftermath of the deadly factory collapse in Bangladesh, while calling for additional actions to overhaul the entire garment sector.
Members of Boko Haram and other extremist groups in Nigeria could face war crimes charges for deliberate acts leading to ethnic and religious cleansing, the top United Nations human rights official said today.
Marking the International Day Against Homophobia, United Nations officials today issued a call on Governments worldwide to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals, and strike laws that discriminate against them.
Ed. Note: You can help people affected by the recent tornadoes through American Red Cross Disaster Relief. If you are in the affected areas, you can also register as "Safe and Well" to let your friends and family know you are okay. President Barack Obama talks on the phone with Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin in the Oval Office, May 20, 2013. The Pre […]
President Barack Obama delivers remarks during the commencement ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., May 19, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Today, President Obama delivered the commencement address to the 2013 graduates of Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA. “It is one of the great honors of my life to be able to address this gather […]
First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks during the Bowie State University commencement at the Comcast Center in College Park, Md., May 17, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson) On Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered the commencement address to the Bowie State University Class of 2013. Bowie State, which opened just two years after […]
May 18th was HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, and we wanted to remind you of several posts we did last week on that subject. On Friday, we featured a guest post, Moving Forward on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, by Dr. Nelson Michael, director of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program. And then we posted this video...
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to talk to people living with HIV (PLWH) and HIV/AIDS advocates. On June 14, under its Patient-Focused Drug Development initiative, FDA will ask PLWH to join an open public discussion about: the impact of HIV on your daily life, experience with currently available therapies to treat HIV, your...
The implementation of scientifically proven HIV prevention strategies is helping to reduce the number of new infections — the annual HIV infection rate globally fell by 22 percent from 2001 to 2011 — but a great deal more must be done. Significant scale-up of proven HIV prevention strategies coupled with the discovery of new HIV...
Bahrain’s court of appeal should overturn a lower court conviction for illegal assembly against the human rights activist Nabeel Rajab and cancel his three-year prison term, according to a recent Human Rights Watch press release. Because the authorities have presented no evidence that he advocated or participated in violence, his conviction is a violation of his right to freedom of peaceful assembly, Human Rights Watch said. The court was scheduled to hear Rajab’s appeal on October 16, 2012, but the appellate court postponed the hearing and denied a petition filed by Rajab’s lawyer challenging the legality of the laws prohibiting demonstrations. A new hearing has been scheduled for December 11, 2012. 
