Society's ChildS

Gear

Israel's Shin Bet accused of coercing false confession and imprisoning innocent man for two years


RT
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:17 UTC
Israel security policemen Shin Bet
© Ammar Awad / ReutersIsraeli security personnel patrol Jerusalem's old city, December 22, 2017.
A panel of Israeli judges has blasted the country's counterterrorism agency Shin Bet, accusing it of dubious interrogation practices and evidence-gathering that led to an innocent man spending two years behind bars.

Last month, 23-year-old Khalil Nimri, of East Jerusalem, was acquitted of plotting a bomb attack against a hotel in the southern resort city of Eilat, known to be frequented by Orthodox Jews. In 2015, a hotel clerk wrongly identified Nimri as a man who came in and started asking suspicious questions, before realizing his mistake and warning the police who then arrested another suspect, Ashraf Salameh.

But instead of letting Nimri go, his interrogators made him believe they would harm his family and coerced him into admitting he was part of the bomb plot. It is not uncommon for a suspect, put under pressure or tricked into thinking they will get off lightly, to confess to something they haven't done.

Comment: The problem with arguing that a "horrible error" was made is that it suggests that such abusive practices on the part of Israeli security and military forces are the exception and not the rule - but we know that's not the case. Sometimes it is not just 'coercion'; others it is torture. And sometimes the targets of torture are children. See: The IDF vs The Teenage Girl: Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Arrested For Slapping Soldiers Who Shot Boy, where we read:
Sadly, what is happening to Ahed is not the exception. Since 2000, at least 8,000 Palestinian children as young as 12 have been arrested and prosecuted by the Israeli military. The Israeli military detention system is notorious for the ill-treatment of children.The extent to which Shin Bet interrogators practice torture has been described as 'institutional'. In its 2016 report, Amnesty International found that Israeli forces and Shin Bet personnel had "tortured and otherwise ill-treated Palestinian detainees, including children, particularly during arrest and interrogation", with methods such as "beating with batons, slapping, throttling, prolonged shackling, stress positions, sleep deprivation and threats".

According to research of Defence for Children International - Palestine, almost two thirds of Palestinian children detained in the West Bank had endured physical violence after apprehension. In several cases (23% in 2013, for example), children have been either shown or made to sign documentation, presumably 'confessions', in Hebrew - a language they do not understand.


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Vader

How "Star Wars" lost its way to identity politics

Bishop Robert Barron
Catholic World Report
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:08 UTC
What began forty years ago as a thrilling, cinematic exploration of the philosophia perennis has devolved into a vehicle for the latest trendy ideology-and that is really a shame.

Star Wars
I fell sound asleep for about ten minutes during the most recent installment in the Star Wars franchise, The Last Jedi. This was not only because the narrative had wandered down a very tedious alleyway, but because Star Wars in general has lost its way. What began as a thrilling exploration of the philosophia perennis has devolved into a vehicle for the latest trendy ideology-and that is really a shame.

Like so many others in my generation (I was seventeen when the first film in the series came out), I was captivated by George Lucas' vision. We all loved the explosions, the spaceships, and the special effects (corny now, but groundbreaking at the time), but we also sensed that there was something else going on in these films, something that excited the soul as much as it dazzled the eyes.

Comment:

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Ice Cube

Russia takes the lead in Arctic exploration


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 23:52 UTC
Russia's Arctic Trefoil
© Vadim Savitsky / SputnikRussia's Arctic Trefoil base located on the island of Alexandra Land โ€“ the westernmost major island of the Franz Josef Archipelago.
Russia has widely expanded its control over its Arctic territories, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said. He added that the unique infrastructure Russia built in the Polar regions is unmatched by any country in the world.

"Throughout the history of Arctic exploration and reclamation, no other country has built so many [infrastructure] objects equipped with such technologies and possessing such levels of capacity in the fields of power saving, as well as military capabilities," Shoigu said, addressing a plenary session of the Public Council of the Russian Defense Ministry on Monday.
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Chess

Checkmate: Israel chess federation demands compensation for Saudi visa ban


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 17:47 UTC
Chess game
© Vegard Wivestad / Global Look Press
Israel's chess governing body is seeking compensation from the organizers of an international chess competition in Saudi Arabia after its players were denied visas to participate in the tournament.

The King Salman World Chess Championships Blitz & Rapid which runs from December 26 to 30 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, would have united the best chess players from all over the world, had it not been a visa snub which precluded Israeli participants from entering.

The two Middle East countries do not have any diplomatic and economic ties, as Saudi Arabia along with many other Arab countries doesn't recognize Israel as a state.

Spokeswoman for the Saudi Embassy in the US Fatimah Baeshen explained Saudi's stance on the issue by saying that "the Kingdom has allowed the participation of all citizens. The exception is whereby the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has historically not had diplomatic ties with a specific country-thus has maintained its policy."
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Question

Minister rules out link between HAARP and Iran earthquakes


Tehran Times
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 18:35 UTC
Mohammad Hossein Zolfaqari
© Shahab GhayuomiMohammad Hossein Zolfaqari.
Tehran - Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement Mohammad Hossein Zolfaqari has ruled out a link between repeated earthquakes in Iran and the HAARP project, saying the claim lacks scientific basis.

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) was initiated as an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It was designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies (BAEAT). Its original purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance.

As a university-owned facility, HAARP is a high-power, high-frequency transmitter used for study of the ionosphere.

Over time, HAARP has been blamed for generating such catastrophes, as well as thunderstorms, in Iran, Pakistan, Haiti, Turkey, Greece and the Philippines, and even major power outages, the downing of TWA Flight 800, Gulf War syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
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Christmas Tree

Gambian migrant tries to steal cross from Milan Christmas tree, gets detained


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 17:11 UTC
christmas tree milan
© cristzam / Instagram
A Gambian man has been apprehended by Italian police in downtown Milan while climbing up a Christmas tree in a bid to remove a cross at its apex. Following a psychiatric examination, the man was admitted to a secure hospital.

A 21-year-old man from the Gambia was arrested by Italian police as he attempted to climb up the illuminated Christmas tree erected in Milan's Piazza Duca d'Aosta on Friday, ANSA reported. Confronted by police about his odd behavior, the man had nothing to say other than "the tree is not good" while pointing to the cross, Il Giornale reports.

Police then took him into custody and in due course brought him to the immigration office to be deported. This was where officers found out that the 21-year-old had already been granted permanent resident status under the refugee protection scheme in the province of Brindisi. Since the man had permanent residence in Brindisi, the officers intended to send him back to the province. However, the man began behaving erratically and was sent to a medical ward in a Milanese hospital as a precaution.

The incident came just a few days after the square was turned into a Tunisian marketplace by the Tunisian Tourist Board which rented the downtown square for a weekend. For this occasion, a giant Arabic gate was set up facing the Christmas tree.

Comment: There are two sides to the hospitality equation. It sounds as if this man may be mentally disturbed, but either way, it's bad form to enter a foreign country and have the audacity to disrupt their cultural traditions. If you don't like the Christmas tree, don't look at it. Talk about an overblown sense of entitlement.

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Briefcase

Rolling Stone settles final defamation lawsuit with UVA fraternity

Daniel Payne
The College Fix
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 16:54 UTC
Defamation suit stemmed from retracted 2014 article accusing frat brothers of gang rape

Phi Kappa Psi fraternity
© Jay Paul/Getty Images
Over three years after Rolling Stone published an article accusing numerous fraternity brothers of vicious gang rape, the magazine has settled the final lawsuit stemming from that controversial report.

The lawsuit, brought against Rolling Stone by three members of the University of Virginia's Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, was "initially dismissed by a federal judge before being revived in September by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals," according to Hollywood Reporter. The parties subsequently "stipulated to dismissal."

Comment: Rolling Stone loses $7mn+ in defamation suit to a university dean of students over false gang rape report

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Handcuffs

14yo girl who sent explicit photo to boyfriend could face 10 years in jail


RT
Sat, 23 Dec 2017 16:50 UTC
selfie
© Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
A 14-year-old Minnesota girl who sent her boyfriend an explicit photo she took of herself may face up to 10 years in jail and be registered as a sex offender. The ACLU calls this a perversion of the state's child porn laws.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU-MN) is calling on Rice County juvenile court to throw out felony child pornography charges against a 14-year-old girl known only as"Jane Doe," according to KSTP-TV.

Doe admits to sending a sexually explicit selfie to a boy she met at school. She used the social media app Snapchat, but the boy shared the photo more widely, according to court documents cited by KSTP. The boy is also being charged.
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Red Flag

Sign contract before sex? Political correctness led by the Left is going to take the passion out of love

Slavoj ลฝiลพek
RT
Mon, 25 Dec 2017 16:39 UTC
harassment
© Frank May / Global Look Press
In the West, at least, everyone has become massively aware of the extent of coercion and exploitation in sexual relations.

However, we should bear in mind also the (no less significant) fact that millions of people on a daily basis flirt and play the game of seduction, with the clear aim of finding a partner for making love. The result of the modern Western culture is that both sexes are expected to play an active role in this game.

When women dress provocatively to attract the male gaze or when they "objectify" themselves to seduce them, they don't do it offering themselves as passive objects: instead they are the active agents of their own "objectification," manipulating men, playing ambiguous games, including reserving the full right to step out of the game at any moment even if, to the male gaze, this appears in contradiction with previous "signals."

This freedom women enjoy bothers all kinds of fundamentalists, from Muslims who recently prohibited women touching and playing with bananas and other fruit which resembles the penis to our own ordinary male chauvinist who explodes in violence against a woman who first "provokes" him and then rejects his advances.

Female sexual liberation is not just a puritan withdrawal from being "objectivized" (as a sexual object for men) but the right to actively play with self-objectivization, offering herself and withdrawing at will. But will it be still possible to proclaim these simple facts, or will the politically-correct pressure compel us to accompany all these games with some formal-legal proclamation (of consensuality, etc.)?
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Pills

Alleged British 'drug smuggler' escapes death penalty in Egypt for banned narcotic


RT
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 15:11 UTC
Drug smuggler
© Mohammed Salem / Reuters
A young British woman has escaped the death penalty, yet been sentenced to three years in jail for bringing 290 pills of Tramadol into Egypt. The painkiller is legal in the UK but a banned narcotic in the north African country.

33-year old Laura Plummer from Hull, England, was handed the three-year sentence for drug smuggling on Tuesday. Plummer and her family have always maintained that the pills - available on prescription in Great Britain - were for her partner Omar Abdel Aziz, who suffers from chronic back pain. The young shop assistant might consider herself lucky - earlier she'd been told that she might be facing 25 years in jail or even the death penalty.

Plummer's mother Roberta Sinclair flew in to Egypt to support her daughter in court.

"I'm still in shock after today's verdict. It's difficult and I can't believe it after waiting for two months," she told the BBC.
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