There are murderous racists in America

Well Iraq is not the only country where a bigot can get away with murder. The story of a young black teenager murdered by a racist "neighborhood watch" schmuck with a gun has energized American media. Weeks after I read about the story on Gawker and Raw Story, the murderer has not been arrested. Today the story caught fire in mainstream media (except for FOX News).

In Florida, if you are a man with some authority, you can kill a man or a kid, claim self defense, and the government will look the other way, just like in Iraq! But ordinary and extraordinary Floridians are PISSED and they're doing something about it. I've been perusing some of the comments for the petition to arrest the murderer. One woman (an MD) wrote: "I can't wait for the FBI to get involved since the State of Florida is dragging its racist heels!"

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After the White House initially said it's a local matter, the US Dept of Justice and the FBI announced they would launch their own investigations.

This type of murder, the type that comes from racism, has happened a lot in America's history, but in 2012? OMG it's embarrassing. Americans should be better than this.

Killed for wearing American jeans

There are mujrimeen among the Shia in Baghdad, and they kill in the name of Islam:

"Youngsters in Iraq are being stoned to death for having haircuts and wearing clothes that emulate the ‘emo’ style popular among western teenagers.

At least 14 youths have been killed in the capital Baghdad in the past three weeks in what appears to be a campaign by Shia militants.

Militants in Shia neighbourhoods, where the stonings have taken place, circulated lists yesterday naming more youths targeted to be killed if they do not change the way they dress.

Al-Bayaty said the killings appear to have been carried out by extremist Shia militias in mostly poor Shia neighborhoods and said she suspected 'there's complicity of the Ministry of Interior in the killings.'

Photos of the victims were released on Facebook, causing panic and fear among Iraqi students."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112960/90-students-Iraq-stoned-death-having-Emo-hair-tight-clothes.html#ixzz1om4zZZdi

I understand now why so many people believe Iraqis lived better under Saddam.

U.S. hikers sentenced to 8 more years in Iran prison

LAT: "Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, both 28 years old, were arrested along the Iran-Iraq border during what they insist was an ill-fated hiking trip in the scenic mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Iranian officials allege that the two men were spies, but have yet to publicly present any evidence. A third hiker, Sarah Shourd, was released on bail last year and has been campaigning for her friends' release. All three are Berkeley grads."

Evidence? Evidence in Iran is whatever the top cleric wants it to be! It's how they win elections.

I wince every time I hear or read a Muslim praising the Iranian government. It is embarrassing.

14-year-old Bangladeshi girl executed after being raped

In Bangladesh? I thought this kind of thing happened only in Saudi Arabia.

Nicholas Kristof: "Hena collapsed after 70 lashes and was taken to the hospital. She died a week later, by some accounts because of internal bleeding and a general loss of blood. The doctors recorded her death as a suicide. (Women and girls who are raped are typically expected to commit suicide, to spare everyone the embarrassment of an honor crime.) I’ve covered enough of these kinds of stories to know that it’s difficult to know exactly what happened unless you’re on the scene talking to everyone who was there; maybe the imam has a different version of events. But all accounts that I’ve seen such that this was a brutal attack on a helpless girl in the name of sharia and justice."

A commenter on that article explains: "This is what was formerly known as East Bengal. Something like this would never happen in West Bengal. If a girl is raped or even as much as "eve teased" forget about it - the whole township will beat the rapist. In East Bengal and in Muslim dominated areas, it is the other way around, its always the girls fault. Apart from religion, nothing separates East and West Bengal, they share the same language, the same culture, similar cuisine, same love for Rabindra sangeet, same music, same dance, same love for literature, even similar passion for debating and chatter. Sad and grim."

Crackdown on journalists concerns US govt

NPR: 'A surge of protests against Iraq's U.S.-backed democratic government has provoked a violent crackdown on demonstrators and journalists that is raising concerns about a rollback of civil liberties throughout the country.

In recent weeks, journalists and activists have been detained and beaten by Iraqi security forces, TV and radio stations attacked in the dead of night, and protesters blocked from getting to demonstrations. In the most serious incidents, an Iraqi reporter claims he was tortured with electricity and three people who went to a protest turned up dead the next morning.

The attacks on journalists have sparked a rare public demand by the American government for accountability.

"We call on the Iraqi Government and Kurdistan Regional Government authorities to follow through on their pledges to investigate these incidents fully, and punish the perpetrators," the embassy said Monday.'

Corporation's allegiance is to profits

not flags or morals. I'm watching The Corporation, an excellent documentary. Watch the clip below. I did not know about IBM's business with the Nazis and the Holocaust until I saw this.



In the 1980s, multi-national corporations sold weapons to Saddam.

Socialism for the Rich Too-Big-to-Fail (Only in America)

Dylan Ratigan asked some excellent questions and compels one to ask if we have socialism for the rich in America. $387 billion in Wall Street bonuses in two years and now our representatives in government squabble over the great cost of healthcare reform and they fear socialized healthcare.

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Some Arabs begin moving mindset out of 7th century

By "7th century" I don't mean to imply that honor killing is an Islamic practice. It is a backward Arab practice that should have ended centuries ago.

"Honor killings have long been tolerated in Muslim countries, but movements are underway to both punish murderers and bring an end to the bloodshed Something is finally beginning to change. The Syrian parliament, for example, last month canceled the clause that permits a judge to show leniency toward a person who kills "for reasons of honor."

Honor can no longer be used as a defense by lawyers when presenting their client's case, and contrary to the previous law that did not state a minimum punishment, now the judges will be forced to imprison murderers for at least two years.

In Jordan the law has not yet been amended, even though the government has twice submitted it to parliament, but the courts themselves have begun acting as if the issue of family honor is no longer valid.

The punishments they have imposed recently for honor killings have been far harsher than what Jordanian citizens are used to.

Official statistics about honor murders are nonexistent, since police refrain from classifying them as such. However, a study carried out by the National Center for Social and Criminal Studies in Egypt indicated that some 70 percent of murders against women were carried out by their husbands, 20 percent by their brothers and 7 percent by their fathers.

The most unpleasant finding in the survey is that more than 70 percent of these murders were perpetrated on the basis of unfounded rumors and remarks from neighbors or friends about the victim's behavior.

The Egyptian human rights organization says the government itself encourages murders of this kind since the law in Egypt still regards family honor as a rationale for lenient sentencing.

Paragraph 237 in the Egyptian penal code reads, "Anyone who comes upon his wife at a time when she is committing adultery and kills her together with the person with whom she was fornicating on the spot, will be punished with imprisonment instead of the punishments stipulated in paragraphs 234 and 236." Those paragraphs contain sentences of life imprisonment, imprisonment with hard labor or death.

There is no plan in Cairo to amend the law and a petition on it has not yet been dealt with by the constitutional court.

However it is not merely the punishment of honor killings that is undergoing renewed scrutiny in Arab states. The public discourse is also beginning to change. Dr. Maan Said, for example, wrote this weekend in the Palestinian Internet newspaper Dunia al-Watan that, "It is surprising that the honor is always masculine but it is masculine from one aspect only. We do not hear, for example, that a young woman killed her sister or her mother in order to cleanse the shame. Could it be that our daughters do not feel the need to wash the shame? On the other hand, the washing of the shame is always done through the blood of women. Is a woman's blood the only blood that is suitable for cleansing of this kind? Let us once more discuss matters that we thought always were part of our basic values but that have become customs that shame us."

The Syrian writer Yassin Rafaiya also chimed in.

"The murder for family honor is one of the ugliest crimes, but the criminal, the murderer, is freed from jail after only a few months while he boasts to the judge that 'that was a defective finger and so we amputated it,'" he wrote. "The family honor murder is an indication of the degeneration and decline even of religious values which grant women respect and status. However these rights have become very wanting in our days."

This discourse, which has traditionally been dominated by voices from Arab women journalists, researchers and feminists, has now moved over to the men's purview."

Another miscarriage of justice

A federal judge has dropped charges against Blackwater guards involved in the deaths of 17 innocent Iraqis two years ago. Iraqis are understandably angry.

The CEO of the company formerly known as Blackwater issued a statement praising a judge's decision to dismiss charges against five of his firm's security guards charged with fatally shooting 14 unarmed Iraqis.

"The company supports the judge's decision to dismiss the charges," said Joseph Yorio, chairman and CEO of the newly christened Xe Services, in a statement appearing in several US media.

"From the beginning, Xe has stood behind the hundreds of brave men who put themselves in harm's way to protect American diplomats working in Baghdad and other combat zones in Iraq," he said.

"Like the people they were protecting, our Xe professionals were working for a free, safe and democratic Iraq for the Iraqi people," read the statement released late Thursday.

Apparently "Xe" protects American diplomats by all means, even by killing innocent Iraqis. Why doesn't the company just admit their guys got spooked by a bomb a mile away and started shooting and accidentally killed a few innocent Iraqis? It's not the first time a security firm killed innocent Iraqis. If we're going to let a private security firm off the hook for killing innocent Iraqis, we might as well free these guys, who actually killed insurgents.

Over 900 people on death row in Iraq; many may be innocent

'The Iraqi authorities must immediately stop the executions of more than 900 people on death row who have exhausted their legal appeals and could be put to death at any time, Amnesty International said.

The prisoners, who include 17 women, are said to have had their death sentences ratified by the Presidential Council, the final step before executions are carried out.

At least 120 people are known to have been executed in Iraq so far this year.

"In a country which already has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, the prospect that this statistic may rise significantly is disturbing indeed," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Many of the condemned prisoners have been convicted of offences such as murder and kidnapping. Some are likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials.

The government is reportedly trying to present itself as being tough on crime and capable of overcoming the difficult security situation in the country, before the national elections in 2010.

Opposition politicians have expressed concern that executions may be carried out to allow the ruling al-Da’wa party to gain political advantage ahead of the elections. They have called on the government to temporarily suspend all executions.

One of those women facing execution is Samar Sa’ad ‘Abdullah, who was sentenced to death on 15 August 2005. She had been found guilty of the murder of her uncle, his wife and one of their children in Baghdad.

Samar Sa’ad ‘Abdullah was reported to have blamed the killings on her fiancé, who, she said, had carried them out in order to rob her uncle.

At her trial, Samar Sa’ad ‘Abdullah alleged that, after her arrest, police in Hay al-Khadhra, Baghdad, had beaten her with a cable, beaten the soles of her feet (falaqa) and subjected her to electric shocks to make her “confess”.

The judge failed to order an investigation into her allegations, and sentenced her to death.

Her father, Sa’ad ‘Abdel- Majid ‘Abd al-Karim, told Amnesty International the trial was concluded in less than two days, that he was not permitted entry to the court, and that Amal ‘Abdel-Amir al-Zubaidi, one of Samar’s lawyers, was ordered out of the court by the trial judge.*

Samar Sa’ad ‘Abdullah's death sentence was confirmed by the Court of Cassation on 26 February 2007.

Since the reintroduction of the death penalty in August 2004, at least 1,000 people have been sentenced to death and scores have been executed. There are no official figures for the number of prisoners facing execution.

After all avenues of appeal have been exhausted, death sentences are referred to the Presidential Council, composed of the President and the two Vice-Presidents, for ratification, after which they are carried out.

The President, Jalal Talabani, opposes the death penalty and delegates his ratification powers to the two Vice-Presidents, who do not oppose its use.

Amnesty International has repeatedly urged the Iraqi authorities to establish an immediate moratorium on executions.

"The Iraqi government must heed international demands to stop executions," said Philip Luther.'

*Bold added by Iraqi Mojo

Open the Amnesty page and take a good look at the photo of the woman accused of killing her own uncle, his wife, and their kid (her cousin). This is absurd.

Iraqi police beat her with a cable, beat the soles of her feet and subjected her to electric shocks to make her confess! Hey isn't that what Saddam's buffoons did?!?!

This Iraqi government is lame, incompetent, unjust, and a complete embarrassment to Iraqis who suffered under Saddam.

"Injustice" compelled him to act

It's interesting how some people act when they see injustice. Muntadhar al Zaidi saw the injustice that befell Iraq, and so he threw his shoes at American President George W. Bush, as if Dubya was the only person in the world responsible for the injustice in Iraq. That's how many people, especially Arabs, prefer to see the Iraq war: it was all Bush's fault. If only Bush had left poor little Saddam to stay in power in Baghdad, everything would be fine in Iraq. Certainly the Sunni Arabs would be happy, and there would have been no bombings of markets in Shia neighborhoods.

In 2006 the Angry Arab was inundated with comments from people who truly believed that the bombs being detonated at police stations and at public places in Iraq were planted by the US military, as if the US wanted to incite sectarian violence in Iraq, as if the sectarian violence somehow helped the US agenda.

Muntadhar al Zaidi writes: "Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents."

No mention of the 3arab jarab, many of them Saddamists, who directly mass murdered Iraqis and forcefully divided "brother from brother" all over Iraq. It is as if there was no injustice in Iraq before 2003, as if Iraqis were all united. Why did Muntadhar al Zaidi not act when he saw the injustice of Saddam's regime? Or did he not see the injustice of Saddam's regime?

Muntadhar al Zaidi wrote about the "scandal of Abu Ghraib" as if there was no torture or murder at Abu Ghraib before 2003, as if torture and murder of innocent Iraqis happened only after the US invasion, as if Iraqis were united for 24 years under the dictatorship of Saddam.

Perhaps Muntadhar al Zaidi was too young to remember the oppression, torture, and murder of Iraqis in the 1980s. Maybe he doesn't know that Saddam's Republican Guards and other security apparatuses slaughtered Iraqi Shia by the tens of thousands in 1991, or maybe that bit of oppression and violence can be blamed on Bush Sr. Maybe he was too young and impressionable to realize that by 2000, Iraqis had already fled Iraq by the millions, not because the US invaded Iraq, but because Saddam's tyranny was too much for Iraqis to bear. Maybe Muntadhar al Zaidi is just a typical Arab who in 2003 did not know what Saddam's regime had been doing to Iraqis for 24 years, and with the discovery of honest reporting in the Arab media (actual reporting done by Jewish American journalist Seymour Hersh) in 2004, the images of abuse at Abu Ghraib by US soldiers angered him, like they angered so many Arabs.

It is as if throwing his shoes at Dubya has solved any of Iraq's problems. If throwing your shoes at a leader is an appropriate response to injustice, why doesn't Muntadhar al Zaidi throw his shoes at the people who have been causing the explosions at Iraqi markets, police stations, universities, restaurants, and even weddings and funerals? Was it Bush who caused those explosions? Or should we forget about them and focus on the crimes committed by American forces, like the Arabs do? US troops withdrew from Iraqi cities almost three months ago, but last month "insurgent attacks produced the highest monthly death toll among Iraqis in 13 months." Is that not injustice, ya Muntadhar? And why didn't you throw one of your shoes at the incompetent Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki?

Nibras Kazimi asks appropriately: "Would al-Zaidi dare to throw a shoe at Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, whose regime enabled jihadists and Ba'athists to wage the bloody insurgency against the New Iraq?"

Injustice

I found this quote on a facebook group protesting Israel's war on Gaza: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where were these people during Saddam's long reign of injustice in Iraq? Or are we not supposed to talk about injustice in Iraq before 2003?

Iran killed teenage girl attacked by rapists

It's hard to believe that some actually defend the evil Khomeinist regime. Thanks Maury.

This story is two years old, but still worth posting, imo.

Iran to hang teenage girl attacked by rapists

Saturday, 07 January 2006
Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

Last week, a court in the city of Rasht, northern Iran, sentenced Delara Darabi to death by hanging charged with murder when she was 17 years old. Darabi has denied the charges.

In August 2004, Iran’s Islamic penal system sentenced a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, to death after a sham trial, in which she was accused of committing “acts incompatible with chastity”.

The teenage victim had no access to a lawyer at any stage and efforts by her family to retain one were to no avail. Atefeh personally defended herself and told the religious judge that he should punish those who force women into adultery, not the victims. She was eventually hanged in public in the northern town of Neka.

"We thought there would be freedom and democracy..."

"There is only fear and horror"

This is so sad. I would love to find the perpetrators of these crimes and beat the shit out of them before sending them to meet their Allah in person. Also read Neurotic Iraqi Wife's latest post. This must be stopped.

Violations of 'Islamic teachings' take deadly toll on Iraqi women

By Arwa Damon
CNN

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.

The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.

"Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I don't know who to be afraid of."

Her fear is justified. Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, is a stronghold of conservative Shia groups. As many as 133 women were killed in Basra last year -- 79 for violation of "Islamic teachings" and 47 for so-called honor killings, according to IRIN, the news branch of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra's police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another. Watch Khalaf show evidence of the brutality »

"I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly," he says. "There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads."

"When I came to Basra a year ago," he says, "two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant."

The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.

Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: "We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you."

The attacks on the women of Basra have intensified since British forces withdrew to their base at the airport back in September, police say. Iraqi security forces took over after British troops pulled back, but are heavily infiltrated by militias.

And tracking the perpetrators of these crimes is nearly impossible, Khalaf says, adding that he doesn't have control of the thousands of policemen and officers.

"We're trying to trace crimes carried out by an anonymous enemy," he says.

Amnesty International has raised concern about the increasing violence toward women in Iraq, saying abductions, rapes and "honor killings" are on the rise.

"Politically active women, those who did not follow a strict dress code, and women [who are] human rights defenders were increasingly at risk of abuses, including by armed groups and religious extremists," Amnesty said in a 2007 report.

Sometimes, it's just the color of a woman's headscarf that can draw unwanted attention.

"One time, one of my female colleagues commented on the color of my headscarf," Safana says. "She said it would draw attention ... [and I should] avoid it and stick to colors like gray, brown and black."

This extremist ideology enrages many secular Muslim women, who say it's a misrepresentation of Islam.

Sawsan, another woman who works at a university, says the message from the radicals to women is simple: "They seem to be sending us a message to stay at home and keep your mouth shut."

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sawsan says, the situation was "the best." But now, she says, it's "the worst."

"We thought there would be freedom and democracy and women would have their rights. But all the things we were promised have not come true. There is only fear and horror."