Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Houston cops publicly rape woman after they "smelled marijuana"

Matt Agorist
Free Thought Project
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 14:54 UTC
cavity search
Charnesia Corley was on her way to the store to get medicine for her sick mother last June when she was detained by police for allegedly running a stop sign. Within minutes, this routine traffic stop turned into a waking nightmare as cops publicly raped her in search of a plant.

According to her lawyer, Sam Cammack, the charges were all eventually dropped and there never was any marijuana.

Corley hired Cammack in an ongoing civil case against Harris County for the despicable violations perpetrated by public servants.

As a result of an investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the Harris County District Attorney's office into the incident, two of the three officers involved have been charged with Official Oppression, a Class A misdemeanor. The defendants, Ronaldine Pierre (33) and William Strong (36), could face up to a year in jail — a ridiculously insignificant punishment for such a gruesome crime.


Comment: The cops are charged with "Official Oppression" and it's a misdemeanor?? What about a more appropriate charge of sexual assault.

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Heart - Black

Palestinian village demolished for the '100th time since 2010', the second time since beginning of Ramadan


RT
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 14:57 UTC
Bedouins prayer
© Hazem Bader / AFP Bedouins attend Friday prayer under a tent in the Al-Araqib village, located between Beersheba and Rahat in the Israeli Negev desert.
Israel has demolished the Arab village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev "for the 100th time since July 2010" and the second time since the beginning of Ramadan, locals and activists say.

"A large number of Israeli police accompanied with bulldozers stormed the village [on Wednesday] at dawn and demolished all the houses, tents and other facilities," local activist Aziz Al-Touri told The Middle East Monitor media outlet.

Israeli authorities claimed that they leveled the village because it was constructed on state land and didn't have the necessary building permits.

Another activist, Saleem Araqeeb, said that the demolition of the village went ahead despite a decision by the Israeli Higher Court of Justice that ruled al-Araqib's lands don't belong to the state, as quoted by the International Middle East Media Center.

He added that after the decision, Israeli authorities filed another lawsuit urging the court to order al-Araqib's residents to pay a daily fine of 5,000 shekels (around $1280).

Moreover, the villagers have also been sued for the cost of the first eight demolitions of their village, for which Israel is seeking 1.8 million shekels ($467,000), Al-Jazeera reported.
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Handcuffs

Police celebrate July 4th with forcible DUI blood draws

John Vibes
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 14:48 UTC
DUI stop
Happy 4th of July, the day where Americans celebrate imaginary freedom, and police departments nationwide make millions of dollars violating the rights of nonviolent individuals.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that police can't forcibly draw blood from individuals suspected of drunken driving without a warrant. However, DUI checkpoints across the country now have judges on site, or on call to issue immediate warrants for cops to take your blood.

Under the pretense of catching drunk drivers, police will be patrolling the streets and setting up checkpoints all over the country this weekend. In some cases they will arrest drunk drivers, in others, they will search and arrest nonviolent drug offenders, while other people may get citations for problems with their vehicle or registration.

Comment: See also: 4th of July DUI Checkpoint: Drug dogs, Searched without consent, Rights taken away while innocent

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USA

USA! USA! Ten reasons America is number 1 that are no cause for celebration

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 04 Jul 2016 14:32 UTC
4th july park rules
Freedom?
As Americans don their red white and blue sequence bar-b-que aprons and raise their flags, ironically made in China, in an effort to "celebrate their freedom," we should be asking ourselves this 4th of July, what freedoms do American's really have?

We are under constant surveillance, our every move under a microscope by government goons, "protecting us" from "terrorists."

We are under the constant threat of violence from the state for possessing a plant, or having a tail light out, or simply walking down the street.

Americans are constantly paranoid of those blue and red lights popping up in the rearview mirror that most always end in extortion and could very well end with a visit to the hospital, being locked in a cage, or worse.
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Che Guevara

Live from Death Row: Mumia Abu-Jamal's Fourth of July

Chris Hedges
Truthdig.com
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 14:17 UTC
Mumia Abu-Jamal
© Jennifer E. Beach / APAn undated photo of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is serving a life sentence.
Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans, like those in the visiting room of the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy, drove often for hours on the Fourth of July weekend to visit relatives or friends who are locked in cages. Millions suffered the painful absence this weekend of a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter or a friend. These people, mostly poor people of color, understand a dark truth about the cruelty and ultimate intentions of the corporate state. They know that "freedom," "justice" and "liberty," especially if you are poor, are empty slogans.

"We live in one of the most un-free systems on earth," said the black revolutionary and author Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom I visited Saturday.
"Mass incarceration is a reality endured by millions of people in prison and in the systems of repression that exist outside of prison. What does freedom mean to poor people who cannot walk freely down a street? What does freedom mean when they cannot find work? What does freedom mean when there is no justice in the courts? What does freedom mean when black people cannot attend a Bible study in a church without the fear of being murdered? Where is this American freedom they keep telling us about? I don't see it. Black folks are more in danger, and being killed in even greater numbers, than during the reign of terror that was lynching and Jim Crow."

Comment: Read more from Mumia and listen to his broadcasts - Live from Death Row prison radio

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Candle

'I hope that peace will be here': 10yo journalist reports from West Bank to highlight her people's plight


RT
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 20:23 UTC
Palestinian child
© Janna Jihad / Facebook
Janna is not your average Palestinian child. While other kids are happily playing, the 10-year-old prefers to take her camera and report from the front lines of demonstrations in the West Bank as she tries to bring Palestine's plight to a wider audience.

Janna Jihad, as she is known, is something of a veteran. She began her reporting career at the age of seven.

"There were not enough journalists covering things that happened, like when my friend was killed and when lots of people were injured. Others were arrested and things like that, and it was not reported by anybody," she told RT.

Comment: See also: The valiant effort to heal 'unimaginable' levels of trauma among Gaza's children

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Pistol

Tracking police murders: 2016 slated to be deadlier than last year


Mint Press News
Fri, 01 Jul 2016 23:58 UTC
police victims
Screenshot of The Guardian’s ‘The Counted’ project, which tracks killings by Police in the United States.
As controversy continues to swirl around the issue of police violence in the United States, the media continues to be our main source of data about the scope of the problem.

The Washington Post, which tracks fatal shootings by police as part of its Fatal Force project, reports that there have already been 20 more fatal shootings this year compared to the same period of 2015.

In April, the Post's Fatal Force project won a Pulitzer Prize, journalism's most prestigious award, in the national reporting category. The project originated when Post staff realized that no government agency tracks police violence, reported Paul Farhi:

"After covering several high-profile incidents involving the killings of civilians by police officers in 2014, Washington Post staff writer Wesley Lowery was surprised to discover that there were no official statistics about such fatalities. So Lowery pitched an idea to his editors: The newspaper, he suggested, should collect the information itself and analyze it for patterns in law enforcement."
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Arrow Up

Big win for Pine Ridge Reservation: No uranium mining on sacred land


White Wolf Pack
Wed, 29 Jun 2016 17:01 UTC
Pine Ridge
Crow Butte, seen from the south, has historical and cultural significance for tribal opponents of uranium mining at the landmark in northeastern Nebraska.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe and activists scored a win on May 26, when federal administrative judges ruled that Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff has failed to take "a hard look" at cultural resources in recommending renewal of a uranium mining license for Crow Butte Mine, near here. The decision delays permitting.

The tribe, intervening in the license renewal application for the mine in Dawes County, Nebraska, adjacent to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, argued that the staff recommended approval in violation of its rights under the National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Protection Act, or NEPA.

Resolving in favor of the tribe's argument, an oversight panel established by the Atomic Licensing and Safety Board ruled: "The NRC staff has not met its identification obligations" under the two laws, "nor has the NRC staff, in its environmental assessment, undertaken a hard look under NEPA at cultural resources within the license area."

Comment: See also: Sold down the river: Navajo activists protest Utah water rights as a bad deal
  • Navajo Water Supply is 'More Horrific than Flint,'; Victimized by the US government because they're Native American


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Bomb

Young man severely injured in explosion in New York's Central Park: Bomb squad at the scene


RT
Sun, 03 Jul 2016 16:13 UTC
NYC explosion
© Andrew Kelly / ReutersMedics stand over a man who was injured after an explosion in Central Park, in Manhattan, New York, U.S. on July 3, 2016.
A young man was severely injured in an explosion in New York's Central Park, in which "his left leg [was] blown off," according to reports from the scene.
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Heart - Black

Chicago: Muslim woman attacked and strip-searched by cops for running to catch her train

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 02 Jul 2016 14:47 UTC
chicago police
An innocent Muslim woman was tackled, beaten, and strip-searched by Chicago cops who mistook her being late for a train ride — as terrorism.

The incident occurred on the Fourth of July last year, but only went to trial this month. Itemad "Angel" Almatar said that she was also kicked, and had her hijab taken off by five Chicago police officers at a train station, CBS Chicago reported.

Almatar was charged with reckless conduct and resisting arrest over the incident.

Much of the incident was captured on video and shows that Almatar was no criminal. In spite of the video showing her innocence, Cook County prosecutors forced Almatar to go to trial. On Wednesday, a jury found her not guilty on all charges.
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