Society's ChildS


Pistol

UN: US police killings of black men reminiscent of 19th century lynchings


RT
Sat, 24 Sep 2016 09:13 UTC
North Carolina police protest
© Mike Blake / ReutersPolice in riot gear gather as they prepare for another night of protests over the police shooting of Keith Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. September 22, 2016.
A hard-hitting report published by a United Nations working group has drawn a comparison between the racial terrorism of lynchings in the 19th century in the US, and the killings by modern police of black men.

"Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching," said the report released by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, according to Reuters. The group will present their findings for debate at a UN Human Rights Council meeting on Monday.

Reuters reported that "most lynching victims died by hanging," and a 2015 report by Equal Justice Initiative found nearly 4,000 black people were killed in "racial terror lynchings' in a dozen southern states between 1877 and 1950." Among the recommendations is one stipulating that the US government must do far more to protect black people.

"[The] legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent," said the report.
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Star of David

Strip searches at Israel's Ben Gurion airport are illegal says rights group Adalah

Allison Deger
Mondoweiss
Sat, 24 Sep 2016 02:53 UTC
israel airport security arabs
© Muslim Observer
For Arab travelers through Israel's Ben Gurion airport, it is common knowledge that lengthy questioning and strip searches come before boarding. As it turns out, forcing passengers into airport back rooms and requiring them to remove clothing is illegal under Israeli law, says the legal rights group Adalah.

Adalah lawyer Fadi Khoury found Israel's policies on flight security stem from a 1977 law that, "does not authorize Israeli airline security personnel to ask passengers to strip naked and to conduct searches or to escort them to the boarding gates," he said.

Khoury filed a complaint earlier this month with Israel's Airline Authority, which is tasked with enforcing security at Ben Gurion airport. The agency responded in writing that it does not conduct "any improper practices including stripping passengers and/or obligating them to be escorted by security guards following the conclusion of the security procedures they are required to undergo."

Yet Adalah spokesperson Mati Milstein said anecdotal evidence shows otherwise. He commented the practice is "widespread" and "systematic," although indicated no official master count exists of strip searches, his group has found numerous complaints.


There is also reported examples in media, including an apology from the Israeli state-owned El Al airlines for strip searching an American professor flying into Israel as an invited guest to Hebrew University in 2010. The following year Israel's ministry of foreign affairs denounced the strip search of a Spanish traveler invited by the Israeli government to participate in that year's gay pride parade.
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Quenelle

Revolutionary fervor in the US is no passing phase: Expect the riots to continue

Vincent Emanuel
Counterpunch
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 00:00 UTC
race riots
April 26th, 1992
There was a riot on the streets
Tell me where were you?
You were sittin' home watchin' your TV
While I was participating in some anarchy

- Sublime
100 Years of Riots

In 1917, white supremacists, the National Guard and the St. Louis Police killed an estimated 150-200 blacks in what is commonly referred to as the "East St. Louis Massacre." Much like St. Louis, Chicago was an up-and-coming industrial city that was experiencing massive demographic shifts as a result of the "Great Migration" north at the beginning of the 20th century. Similarly, Chicago experienced its own race riots in 1919, where 38 people were killed and 500 injured. Two years later, over 300 blacks were killed in the "Tulsa Race Riot." In other words, none of this is new for black Americans.

Unfortunately, history has a sick way of repeating itself.

On Friday, September 16th, 2016, a white Tulsa police officer by the name of Betty Shelby shot and killed Terence Crutcher in broad daylight, next to his broken down SUV (she claims she was reaching for her Taser). Four days later, Charlotte police gunned down Keith Lamont Scott as he sat in his car. While people remained somewhat subdued in Tulsa, tensions have increased in Charlotte. So far, one person has been shot and a police officer was sent to the hospital with undisclosed injuries.
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USA

Oh, say can you see - the carnage? Why stand for a country that can gun you down in cold blood?

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 00:00 UTC
black flag
If black athletes in the NFL honestly think that African Americans who live under Old Glory are as 'equally protected 'as whites, then they should stand up during the national anthem and sing-along. But if they know that blacks aren't getting a square deal, and that blacks can be gunned down at any time by trigger-happy cops who never face the consequences, then they owe it to themselves and their country to demand change by remaining seated.

I'm sorry that football players have to go through this. I'm sorry they find themselves in a situation where they're forced to make a political statement. After all, they're not politicians and they don't want to be. They're private citizens like the rest of us who just want to do their jobs, make some money, and be left the hell alone.

But what choice do they have now? The epidemic of cop killings around the country is forcing people to stand up and say "Enough". So now black athletes are being asked to either stand up, sing along and act like highly-paid circus animals, or follow in the steps of Rosa Parks and Malcolm X and Mohammed Ali and the other people of conscience who put themselves at risk by acting on principal.
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Boat

At least 133 bodies recovered from capsized migrant boat in Egyptian waters


RT
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 21:22 UTC
bodies recovered
© tribune.com.pkRescue workers recovery operation.
Egyptian authorities have recovered at least 133 bodies from the water, two days after a boat packed with migrants capsized off the country's coast two days ago. The fishing vessel which had been on its way from Egypt to Italy sank on Wednesday off the port city of Rosetta in the Nile Delta.

"The death toll from the illegal migrant boat that capsized off the coast of Rosetta ... has reached 133," the Egyptian Health Ministry said in a statement.However, the governor of the Beheira region said that 148 bodies have now been salvaged, according to Reuters.

There is no accurate information available about the number of people who had been aboard the boat when it capsized. Security sources believe that the boat carried almost 600 migrants. However, according to survivors, some 200 had initially been aboard, and smugglers added an extra 50 at the last moment, which was the root of the tragedy.

Meanwhile, the fishermen who launched the rescue operation after the incident took place said they managed to save 169 people.

The passengers of the ill-fated boat included residents of Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as Egypt. Four suspected traffickers were arrested by the Egyptian authorities following the incident.

The International Organization for Migration said that over 3,200 migrants have drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean this year. The fatality rate has risen, despite a decrease in the member of refugees trying to reach Europe, with UN refugee agency (UNHCR) calling 2016 "the deadliest year on record in the Mediterranean Sea."

Comment: Yet another tragedy, part of the ever-growing spiral of victims from circumstances not of their own making.

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Pistol

Brave woman takes on 3 armed home invaders, shoots one dead


RT
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 21:42 UTC
Woman shooting robbers
© Shutupmom bugoff / YouTube
Three robbers got more than they expected when an attempted burglary went horribly wrong resulting in their accomplice being shot dead by a woman staying at the Atlanta property.

The two other raiders, who just managed to escape, are described as "armed and dangerous" and being hunted by police.

Gwinnett County Police have released compelling footage of the moment three men brandishing firearms were caught breaking into a house in the early hours of September 16.

CCTV video shows three men bursting through the front door in Spring Drive just before 4am. The group, with their faces uncovered, then appear to search the property.
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Camcorder

Family of Keith Scott releases video of police fatally shooting him


RT
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 21:12 UTC
keith scott family
© Jason Miczek / ReutersFamily members of Keith Scott assemble near a press conference, held after protests against the police shooting of Scott, in Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. September 22, 2016
Keith Scott's family has released a video of police officers fatally shooting him that was recorded by his wife, who was talking to police from a distance. It was released to NBC News after law enforcement once again refused to release their footage.

Despite law enforcement's refusal to release any footage, Scott's family made the video recorded by his wife public.

"Don't shoot him! Don't shoot him! He has no weapon, he has no weapon," Scott's wife Rakeyia Scott says.

Officers then can be heard yelling in the background to drop the gun: "Drop the gun! Drop the f***ing gun!"

"He doesn't have a gun, he has a TBI [traumatic brain injury], he's not going to do anything. He just took his medicine," she tells officers.

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Arrow Up

UNHCR: Yemeni death toll approaches 4,000 civilians


Sputnik
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:13 UTC
yemeni casualties
© www.middleeasteye.net
Nearly 4,000 civilians were killed during one and a half years of the armed conflict in Yemen, a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday.

"We note with deep concern the sharp increase in civilian casualties since the suspension of peace talks, with 180 people killed and 268 injured in August... In total, 3,980 civilians have been killed and 6,909 injured between 26 March 2015 and 22 September 2016," Cecile Pouilly said at a press briefing.

The August figures represent a 40-percent increase compared to the civilian casualties the previous month, with 60 killed and 123 injured, she noted.

"In the light of the high civilian casualty numbers and the terrible suffering of the civilian population, we urge all parties to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, including their obligation to respect the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution. We reiterate our call for the setting up of an international and independent investigative body," Pouilly stressed. Yemen has been engulfed in a military conflict between the government headed by Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and Houthi rebels since 2014. The Houthis are backed by army units loyal to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Comment: See also:
Oxfam: UK exacerbating humanitarian disaster in Yemen by supplying Saudi Arabia with arms, in breach of international law

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Cult

U.S. Lawyer: After School Satan Club must be allowed to proceed

Kera Wanielista
Skagit Valley Herald
Thu, 22 Sep 2016 19:56 UTC
After School Satan Club
© Brandy Shreve / Skagit Valley HeraldParents address the Mount Vernon School Board on Wednesday night during the public comment period to express their concerns and disapproval of the After School Satan Club.
A so-called "After School Satan Club" proposed by the Satanic Temple of Seattle to be held at Centennial Elementary School should be allowed to proceed, an attorney hired to represent the Mount Vernon School District said.

"I think that if the school district denied that application, you would face costly litigation that would be distracting from your mission," said Duncan Fobes of the Seattle-based law firm Patterson, Buchanan, Fobes and Leitch during a Wednesday meeting of the Mount Vernon School Board. "And would ultimately be unsuccessful."

Fobes was hired by the district's risk-pool insurance group to assess whether the district had legal standing to deny the temple's application.

"We believe that it's clear that, because the district has a policy and procedure that encourages the use of community groups to use your facilities, because you do that, you must open it to this group," Fobes said. "You don't have to sponsor the group, you don't have to help the group."

A 2001 Supreme Court ruling, Good News Bible Club vs. Milford Central School District, stated that if schools allow any organization to use school property, they must allow all organizations — religious and secular — to have access.

Comment: Irrespective of one's beliefs this story stands as a symbol of the direction the U.S. has taken. An elementary school, charged with the care of young children, rendered helpless by a psychopathic 'money shall be god above all' system, which makes it all possible: "There really is no opportunity for us to say no to the Satanic Temple". Indeed. As above, so below.

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Pirates

ISIS radicalizes 2000 teens in France


RT
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 18:43 UTC
youth and fire
© Ali Hashisho / Reuters
Around 2,000 teenagers have been radicalized by the Islamic State propaganda in France, a security source told Le Figaro newspaper, adding that the number of girls embracing jihadist ideology is on the rise.

Since the start of the year security force have identified 1,954 young men and women as Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist organization sympathizers, Le Figaro newspaper reported.

An unnamed high-raked security service official told the paper that the levels of radicalization among teens in the country have increased by 121 percent compared to January 2015.

17 French youths have been killed as they fought for the jihadists in Syria and Iraq, the source added. According to the official, 37 teens have been recently indicted in the country on charges related to extremism and terrorism. Another trend that worries the authorities is the increasing number of teenage girls sympathizing with the Islamic State terrorists, he said.

The jihadists are looking for youths with psychological problems, who experience difficulties at school or go through their parents' divorce, the source stressed. Special recruiting techniques, employed by IS, make those young men and women an easy target for the radicals, he added.

Comment: Reaping what they sow? What goes around comes around? The US and cohorts' long list of accountability includes the delusions, susceptibility and recruitment of youth in ISIS supported nations.

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