Archive for January, 2010

A century and a half after slavery was abolished in the United States, the stain of involuntary servitude lingers on in Maryland. Immigrant laborers brought into the state by human traffickers work for little or no pay on farms and construction sites; women and girls lured by false promises of office jobs end up as virtual prisoners in homes where they serve as nannies and maids; and young people of both sexes are forced into prostitution, with the proceeds going to pimps and criminal gangs.

This archipelago of exploitation and misery is only made possible by the brutal application of force and relentless psychological coercion — beatings, rapes, torture and murder are the commonest way of sowing fear among victims. And the criminals know that the state’s laws against human trafficking are seldom enforced and are so weak that even if they are caught they are unlikely to suffer serious consequences.

Maryland’s laws against human trafficking are, in fact, weaker in many respects than federal laws for the same crimes. Those lax laws, coupled with the fact that the state lies on the I-95 corridor linking it to other major trafficking centers in New York, Georgia and Florida and also has easy access to three major international airports, has made Maryland one of the hubs of a $9 billion-a-year global industry of trafficking in human beings that is among organized crime’s most profitable enterprises.

That’s why strengthening Maryland’s laws against human trafficking should be a top priority for the General Assembly this year.

We hope lawmakers will support legislation sponsored by Dels. Jeffrey D. Waldstreicher and Kathleen M. Dumais and Sen. Jennie M. Forehand that would stiffen the penalties for criminals who traffic in adult victims, along with anyone who knowingly benefits from human trafficking, or has a reasonable opportunity to observe that juveniles are being victimized.

Maryland took an important step in 2007 when it changed the law against child sex trafficking from a misdemeanor to a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

But state law still treats trafficking adult women as a misdemeanor, as evidenced by last year’s bungled case against Carlos Silot, whom police accused of running a brothel near Patterson Park using two women illegally brought from Mexico as prostitutes. The charges were dropped because the women never showed up to testify at Mr. Silot’s trial, but even if he had been convicted, he would have served no more than 10 years. The pending legislation would make trafficking adult victims a felony with the same penalties as those for trafficking children.

Similarly, current law only targets the people directly engaged in human trafficking while ignoring the network of brothel landlords, drivers, door-keepers and bartenders who also knowingly benefit from the crime. The pending legislation would expand the law to allow prosecutors to charge these actors for their roles in aiding and abetting the traffickers. It would also make it easier to bring cases involving juveniles by adopting the federal standard for such prosecutions, which requires only that a defendant had a “reasonable opportunity to observe” the victim was a minor.

Finally, lawmakers should also adopt legislation introduced by Dels. Joanne C. Benson and Tom Hucker to require the state to post information about how trafficking victims can get help. The notices bearing the phone number of a national hotline for trafficking victims would be placed at truck stops, bus stations, highway rest stops and toll booths, as well as in strip clubs, motels and certain agricultural workplaces. Human trafficking thrives on secrecy and the social and physical isolation of its victims. To combat the problem, Maryland must not only adopt tougher penalities for those who traffic in human lives but also let their victims know the law won’t let them down if they ask for help in bettering their condition.

Copyright © 2010, The Baltimore Sun

Canadian Bishops Release Letter on Human Trafficking at Vancouver Olympics

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

OTTAWA, January 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pastoral letter on human trafficking within the context of preparations for the 2010 Olympic Games to be held in Vancouver has been issued by the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The pastoral letter begins with a reference to Senator Mobina Jaffer’s statement of November 14, 2007 on the potential for the sexual exploitation of women and children at the Vancouver Olympics.

Senator Jaffer, quoting from a report by the Future Group entitled “Faster, Higher, Stronger: Preventing Human Trafficking at the 2010 Olympics” said there is a “startling link between international sporting events and an upsurge in the demand for prostitution, which can fuel human trafficking. It specifically found that there was an increase of 95 per cent in the number of human trafficking victims identified by Greek authorities during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.”

The Canadian bishops say that groups involved in the struggle against human trafficking are worried that the Vancouver Olympics will be seen by some as an opportunity to make money, no matter the cost to human dignity and human rights. “The fact is that at some major sporting events, systems are often put in place to satisfy the demand for paid sex. Unfortunately, this is likely to be the case during the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.”

“As pastors of the Catholic Church in Canada, we denounce human trafficking in all its forms,” the pastoral letter declares, “whether it is intended for forced labour (domestic, farm or factory work) or for sexual exploitation (whether it be prostitution, pornography, forced marriages, strip clubs, or other).”

Senator Jaffer described the two aspects of concern over trafficking at the Vancouver Games: “first, that a short-term increase in demand for prostitution during the games could be filled by human trafficking victims; and second, that the traffickers may attempt to bring trafficked persons posing as ‘visitors’ into Canada for the Olympics, only to exploit them in other cities or transit them to the United States.”

The pastoral letter notes that the “scale of human trafficking is alarming. While it is difficult to find precise figures, the International Labour Organization (ILO) nevertheless estimates that 2.4 million people are victims of trafficking; 1.3 million of these are involved in various forms of sexual exploitation.”

In response to the growth in this type of organized crime the bishops first of all urge the faithful to become informed about human trafficking, whether it takes place in the “impoverished populations of the South and East” or on our own doorstep where “Canadian aboriginal women and young girls disappear from their villages and are never seen again.”

“We invite the faithful to become aware of this violation of human rights and the trivialization of concerns about prostitution. Following the example of Jesus, who came into the world so that people ‘may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10), we can share in the suffering of the victims and change the behaviours and mentalities that foster institutionalized violence in this new form of slavery which is human trafficking.”

After becoming aware that human trafficking is happening in Canada, the bishops encourage Canadians “to recognize it, talk about it with others, and take action in our communities to stop it.”

“Many avenues exist to help solve this problem,” the bishops’ letter explains. “We can support organizations that work with those who are victims of human trafficking, and also ask our governments to set up programs to educate people and to prevent violence against women. To help women break free of prostitution, as they are generally the victims, we must provide concrete assistance: including health care, psychological counselling, detoxification programs, safe housing, decent employment, and spiritual support.”

The pastoral letter concludes with encouragement to pray for those exploited by human trafficking and for the groups who struggle against it.

“Our prayers will also strengthen the hope of those many people whose liberty and humanity have been taken from them by trafficking and the courage of those groups that assist them. May our faith and outrage spur us to get involved, individually and together, for the transformation of our world!”

More information on the trafficking of women and children is available on the website of the Canadian Religious Conference, under the heading “CRC Priorities.”

The full text of the Canadian Bishops Pastoral Letter on Human Trafficking is available here.

WOODBURY — A Franklin Township woman pleaded guilty Friday to allegations she plied a 13-year-old with alcohol shortly before she was sexually assaulted by another person.
Brianna Vogel, 24, of Grant Avenue, faces a four-year prison term when she is sentenced March 19 on a charge of endangering the welfare of a minor. Vogel pleaded guilty as part of a negotiated agreement with Senior Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Audrey Curwin.
Vogel acknowledged to Superior Court Judge M. Christine Allen-Jackson that she provided an alcoholic beverage that the intoxicated girl on April 14, 2007.
The incident stemmed from an encounter at a Franklinville skating rink between the victim, Vogel and Richard Oliver.
Defendant Oliver, 24, also of Grant Avenue in  Franklinville,  previously pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the victim at his family’s residence. He is currently serving a seven-year sentence.

Operator closes in-home day care to avoid action by state

A 22-year-old Dover man was arrested Tuesday for fondling a 4-year-old girl last week when he was left in charge of his mother’s day care, state police said.

William H. Johnson Jr. of the 100 block of N. Governors Blvd. in Capitol Park was charged with one count of first-degree unlawful sexual contact in the incident that occurred Jan. 20 at an in-home day care in the 100 block of N. Governors Blvd., said police Master Cpl. Bruce Harris.

Wannetta Johnson, the business owner, left him in charge when she left the home.

Johnson touched the child inappropriately while the two sat on a couch, according to court papers.

The victim told her mother, who contacted police.

The child was interviewed at the Children’s Advocacy Center, police said in court records.

The only other adults present were the operator’s friend and her husband, who were asleep.

"She has voluntarily closed the day care to avoid any kind of action," said state Family Services spokesman Joe Smack. "We would have closed the day care immediately as part of the investigation."

Johnson was arrested Wednesday and released on $10,000 secured bail pending a Feb. 5 court hearing.

A 27-year-old Valdosta State Prison inmate was strangled to death, according to the Lowndes County coroner.
Quantcast
Georgia Department of Correction John W. Arnett, an inmate in Valdosta State Prison, was strangled to death, according to Bill Watson, Lowndes County Coroner. He was serving a sentence for child molestation.
Georgia Department of Correction Anthony Tyler Rogers, already serving life in prison for murder, has been accused of killing another inmate in the Valdosta State Prison.
Related

* Murder at Ga. prison?
* Fulton inmate set on fire

More Atlanta area news »

* No Snellville Sun. liquor sales
* Group holds fundraiser for at-risk kids
* Chambliss to address Cobb chamber
* Fake turf coming to Sandy Springs park
* Top news around the Web

John Arnett, who was convicted of child molestation in both Bartow and Appling counties, was found in his cell last Thursday. The cause of death was manual strangulation, according to Coroner Bill Watson.

Arnett’s sentence began last July, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

An inmate already serving time for a previous murder conviction has been accused in Arnett’s death. Anthony Rogers has been in jail since October 1998 following his conviction for murder in the Savannah area.

Arnett is at least the third state inmate to die in recent weeks.

On Jan. 1, guards at the state prison in Jackson found 35-year-old Leeland Mark Braley hanging in his cell. Prison officials say Braley, sentenced to death in 1999 for the murder of a Zebulon insurance agent, apparently took his own life.

Timothy Pruitt’s death more than three weeks earlier was ruled an “alleged suicide,” though his death remains under investigation.

- Christian Boone contributed to this report

Dana Lewis

21

comments
Christian in Egypt: ‘They Try to Kill Us’
January 26, 2010 – 11:41 AM | by: Dana Lewis

Egyptian Maher El-Gowhary and his 15 year old daughter Dina never pray twice at the same church, never stay longer than a month in any one apartment. They are constantly under threat, always on the run because they converted to Christianity in a largely Muslim country.

Maher and Dina nervously agreed to meet us at a Church in Cairo. The priest at the Church said he feared problems from the Egyptian authorities and while he agreed to have us watch his Sunday mass, the Priest declined to speak to us about what is happening in Egypt and to the El-Gowhary’s.

They tell their story out of fear and desperation. Born Muslims they chose to convert to the Christian Church after both claim they had religious visions.

Now Maher says “Muslims try to kill us, and will kill us if they find us.”

Several religious fatwas have been issued for “spilling his blood” after Maher asked an Egyptian Court to legally recognize his conversion, so he can one day be buried as a Christian and so his daughter won’t be forced into a marriage by her Muslim mother.

The court ruled a legal conversion to Christianity would threaten public order. His lawyer told us it’s a dangerous double standard because in Egypt a Christian can convert to the Muslim faith in a week, but a Muslim cannot convert to the Christian faith.

Ten percent of Egypt is Christian, largely the Coptic Christians who increasingly say they face daunting discrimination and even death.

We had to hide our camera as we followed the El-Gowhary’s because we were told if the authorities discovered we were preparing our story we would be arrested.

Religious tensions are running high in Egypt.

On January 6th, the Coptic Christmas eve, three Muslim men sprayed gunfire at a Church in Upper Egypt killing six Christians and wounding up to a dozen more. Christians rioted the next day and the area is still closed to outsiders including the press.

Human rights activist Hussein Bahjet say’s Egypt has the potential to become like Lebanon because of growing sectarian violence.

“Civil strife that could engulf the country” Bahjet says.

The U.S. State Department reports respect of religious freedom in Egypt is declining, Christians are denied Government jobs, Priests are threatened and harassed, Christians are increasingly attacks in what State describes as “a climate of impunity that encourages violence.”

In some cases authorities turn a blind eye to attacks on Christians, in other cases there is evidence police sparked the attacks.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been largely silent about the problem, but this week he spoke out saying Egyptians must up-root “fanaticism and sectarianism, which threatens the unit of our nation.”

Dina has written a letter to President Obama which has been published on Christian websites. She has been pulled out of school. She has only a blue jean jacket to stay warm and little food to eat. Her letter was a desperate plea. “I wrote that we are a minority Christian Community treated very badly and I want to tell President Obama to tell the Egyptian Government to treat us well.”

Her father Mayer says he can’t stay in Egypt anymore. He and his daughter are in such grave danger we can’t report where they are in Egypt now, or where they are planning on moving tomorrow.

In recent days the two met with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in Cairo. They asked for refugee status to get out of Egypt.

A source at the Commission say’s its a complicated matter because Dina has a Muslim mother and there are legal issues, but their request is being considered.

The Commission source also says because of religious discrimination in Egypt, last year the State Department down graded Egypt to being on a watch list. This year it could potentially be downgraded further to a Country of particular concern. That means the U.S. might even consider sanctions against a Country which receives some 2 billion dollars in U.S. aid every year.

As I write this Dina and her father are packing, moving to another area of Egypt. Out of money. And running of out hope.

(WTOL) – Orlando Reyes-Cairo was hired as a professor of Spanish at Owens Community College in 1999, which is one year after he got out of jail for attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a 13-year-old boy in north Toledo.

Representatives of Owens Human Resources Department say there was not a policy in place in 1999 to do to do background checks or to require potential employees to disclose such convictions. Reyes-Cairo served one year in prison for the conviction.

Students say they are uncomfortable having a convicted sex offender as a teacher. William Hiatt dropped the class after learning of Reyes-Cairo’s criminal record and says the professor should not be working there. “He may never do anything, but there’s always the remote chance that he could do something,” said Hiatt.

Owens VP of Human Resources, Cynthia Eschenburg, says the school created a policy three years ago to cover background checks and criminal disclosure. She says they reviewed Reyes-Cairo’s case and decided to keep him on staff. ”He was a low-level offender. There have been no complaints of continued behavior. Not any complaints at all regarding this instructor,” she said.

Reyes-Cairo would not agree to an interview but did say by phone: “I should have been taken off the registration list after ten years. That has expired, and now they have added extended registration. It is totally unfair.” He also said he never committed the crime.

Rate jumps for first time in decade, raising alarm among experts

WASHINGTON – The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.

The pregnancy rate among 15-to-19-year-olds increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 —the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and the nation’s leading reproductive-health think tank.

Teen pregnancy has long been one of the most pressing social issues and has triggered intense political debate over sex education, particularly whether the federal government should fund programs that encourage abstinence until marriage or focus on birth control.

“The decline in teen pregnancy has stopped — and in fact has turned around,” said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group in New York that conducted the analysis. “These data are certainly cause for concern.”

‘More creative’
The abortion rate also inched up for the first time in more than a decade — rising 1 percent — intensifying concern across the ideological spectrum.

“One of the nation’s shining success stories of the past two decades is in danger of unraveling,” said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “Clearly, the nation’s collective efforts to convince teens to postpone childbearing must be more creative and more intense, and they must begin today.”

The cause of the increase is the subject of debate. Several experts blamed the increase in teen pregnancies on sex-education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence. Others said the reversal could be due to a variety of factors, including an increase in poverty, an influx of Hispanics and complacency about AIDS, prompting lax use of birth control such as condoms.

“It could be a lot of things coming together,” said Rebecca Maynard, a professor of economics and social policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It could be we just bottomed out, and whenever you are at the bottom, it tends to wiggle around. This may or may not be a sustained rise.”

The report comes as Congress might consider restoring federal funding to sex-education programs that focus on abstinence. The Obama administration eliminated more than $150 million in funds for such groups, but the Senate’s health-care reform legislation would reinstate $50 million.

The new findings immediately set off a debate over funding. Critics argued that the disturbing new data were just the latest in a long series of indications that the focus on abstinence programs was a dismal failure.

“Now we know that after 10 years and over $1.5 billion in abstinence-only funding, the U.S. is lurching backwards on teen sexual health,” said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth, a Washington advocacy group.

Supporters of abstinence programs, however, said the findings provided powerful evidence of the need to continue to encourage delayed sexual activity, not only to avoid pregnancy but also to reduce the risk for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“Research unmistakably indicates that delaying sexual initiation rates and reducing the total number of lifetime partners is more valuable in protecting the sexual health of young people than simply passing out condoms,” said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, who blamed the increase on several factors.

“Contributors include an over-sexualized culture, lack of involved and positive role models, and the dominant message that teen sex is expected and without consequences,” Huber said. The Obama administration is launching a $110 million pregnancy prevention initiative focused on programs with proven effectiveness but has left open the possibility of funding some innovative approaches that include encouraging abstinence.

Sharp rise in 70s, 80s
The rate at which U.S. teenagers were having sex rose steadily through the 1970s and 1980s, fueling a sharp rise in teen pregnancies and births. That trend reversed around 1991 because of AIDS, changing social mores about sex and other factors, including greater use of contraceptives, which pushed the U.S. teen pregnancy rate to historic lows.

The U.S. rates still remained higher than those in other industrialized countries.

The decline in teen sexual activity had leveled off starting about nine years ago, and the teen birth rate began to increase in 2005. It wasn’t known before if the increase was due to more pregnancies or fewer abortions and miscarriages. For the first time, the new analysis uses those factors in calculating the teen pregnancy rate.

The analysis examined data on teenage sex and births collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics and data on abortions collected by the CDC and Guttmacher — the two best sources of such data.

The abortion rate among teenagers rose 1 percent in 2006 from the previous year — to 19.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age group, the analysis found. Taking that and miscarriages into account, the analysis showed that the pregnancy rate among U.S. women younger than 20 in 2006 was 71.5 per 1,000 women, a 3 percent increase from the rate of 69.5 in 2005. That translated into 743,000 pregnancies among teenagers, or about 7 percent of women in this age group.

“When birth rates go up and down, it could be the result of kids getting fewer abortions,” said John Santelli, a professor of population and family health at Columbia University. “This shows that it’s a true rise in pregnancies.”

The rate remained highest for blacks but increased for all racial groups. Among blacks, the rate increased from 122.7 per 1,000 in 2005 to 126.3. For Hispanics the rate rose from 124.9 per 1,000 women to 126.6. Among whites, the rate increased from 43.3 per 1,000 women to 44.0.

(CNN) — Police tentatively identified remains found on a remote farm as the Virginia Tech student who disappeared in October during a Metallica concert.

Morgan Harrington, a 20-year-old education major, went to the concert at the University of Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Virginia, on October 17. She was separated from her friends and was the subject of repeated searches.

Police said skeletal remains were found in a hay field on a 700-acre farm with no public access point.

Police said there was significant evidence, but declined to specify what leads them to believe the remains are Harrington’s. They said however an autopsy should confirm the identity.

During the concert, Harrington left her friends to use the restroom, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Wednesday, and when she did not return they called her on her cell phone at 8:48 p.m. She told them she was outside the arena and could not get back in because of its policy, Geller said, but told them not to worry about her and that she would find a ride home.

There are restrooms inside the arena, Geller said, and police do not know how or why Harrington got outside. Witnesses who saw her outside the arena said she did not appear to be with anyone, Geller said.

At about 9:30 p.m. that night, witnesses reported seeing a person matching Harrington’s description walking on a nearby bridge, Geller said. No further sightings were reported.

Harrington’s purse, with her identification and cell phone inside, was found the following day in an overflow parking lot near the arena, Geller said. A friend had driven Harrington’s car to the concert, she said, and so was still in possession of the car keys when they got separated.

Harrington was reported missing the day after the concert, when she did not show up at her parents’ home to study for a math exam with her father.

Working with police and the Texas-based Laura Recovery Center, the Harringtons organized community searches, saying they would not give up home their daughter would be found.

The couple was joined at a press conference after her disappearance by Ed Smart, whose daughter Elizabeth was abducted in 2002. She returned home nine months later after police found her in the custody of suspect Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee.

Harrington said he reached out to Smart last week to seek advice on how to go through the disappearance of a child.

Harrington was wearing a black Pantera T-shirt, a black miniskirt, black tights and black boots when last seen.

Frederick Douglass (Wikimedia Commons)

Frederick Douglass, the 19th-century African-American visionary, had a warning: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without the thunder and lightening; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.” In the 21st century, those who seek equality without the honest and painful discussion that goes with it might well fall into this category.

On Martin Luther King’s birthday, MSNBC aired “Obama’s America,”a two-hour debate from Texas Southern University. It revolved around race relations in America.

Chris Matthews, the host, asked me point-blank why students voted overwhelmingly for President Obama. I reported what a number of students at New York University had told me: they supported Obama because he’s Black. As I questioned them further, students explained that they wanted to right a historic wrong by ensuring that the land of opportunity would finally have an African-American president.

My fellow panelists, Jeff Johnson of Black Entertainment Television and Tom Joyner, a renowned radio personality, flipped. I didn’t win any popularity contest by asking them a few questions of my own:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Later, I pointed out that in the United States, “non-whites” increasingly include Asian and Hispanic immigrants. Therefore, we’d better get serious about treating race relations as multi-layered:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

But I have a feeling that for most Americans, it’s comfortable clinging to Black and White. It’s what they know — and it’s far from resolved. Hence the uproar over my remarks about Obama and the student vote.

For the past week, viewers have been weighing in through emails, Facebook posts and Tweets. Here’s a snapshot of U.S. racial politics in 2010:

* “Americans are thumb-suckers when it comes to race. There is nothing wrong with reporting what students said about why they voted for the President… If I had to put my finger on what made everyone feel uncomfortable, it was the moment you asked, ‘Are these students racist because they say they voted for President Obama because he is black?’ Even I was taken aback by the question. But scholars like you are supposed to ask the tough questions to spark candid debate… I would make no apology to the people who live in the angry corner or who act like children on these issues.” – Courtney

* “Why should you be asking people on a historic Inauguration Day who they voted for and why? It was not only a very Special Day for all African-Americans but ALL Americans whether you voted for him or not… African-Americans made extraordinary sacrifices to get American race relations to this point, which has ultimately paved the way for a Muslim girl like you to have these limitless opportunities in America. You should be grateful to all African-Americans [instead of] pushing your agenda of mass migration of Asians to the United States…

I hope and pray that the land of the free will never be swamped by those from the Indian sub-continent, as you have already swamped Great Britain.” – buzzmaster007

* “When [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder says that Americans are a ‘nation of cowards’ for how we discuss race, he is pounced on by both sides. The fact of the matter is, you are a professor who challenges students and brings their answers to a larger group. It is the group who fails to see the shades of color. Culture has indoctrinated them to see the world in black and white only.” – YB

* “I was embarrassed by [your] performance of overbearing arrogance as you attempted to defend the indefensible position that you had solved the question of Obama’s youth support on the basis that ‘he’s black.’ As one who has far more understanding of the black experience and white attitudes toward blacks both in the US and Canada than you can ever hope to have, I believe that any assertions you make in that regard should be proffered with far more modesty than you displayed…

[Your] insertion of immigration policy before an audience for whom the history of the US is all about Black/White relations was simply to have missed the point as you accused the audience of doing. To them it was you who missed the point.” – Howard

* “I was truly embarrassed by the arrogance of your co-panelist, who intolerantly attempted to dismiss your point, suggesting instead that Obama won the election because he ‘had swagger.’ I wonder what he thought of Bush’s swagger. It was saddening to see that you were the only panelist willing to ask the right questions.” – Steve

* “Race has been a deciding factor in every election. I know it was the reason that I voted for Obama. I promised myself, for this election only, I’ll be a bigot and vote for the black guy. And if Barack won the election, I’d never do that again. So that’s what I did… You said what I would have probably been too afraid to say in front of all those people! The Raw Truth. For you to voice the truth like that shows that YOU have SWAGGER.” – Antar

* “Your argument about why the youth voted for Obama was ridiculous. Unless you are a pollster, why would you present some unfounded data at such a public event?… Your biased statement may cost you something in the future.” – Asamnew

* “Truth be told, I was ecstatic that the Democratic candidate was going to be either a woman or a Black man. I couldn’t take one more old white guy. I look forward to a time when I can look ONLY at the content of the character, but we are not there yet. I would cast my vote for the same simple-minded (?) reason again.” – Lauren

* “I have two degrees from NYU and many years of teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate level and I have never known students who were unaware of political issues or voted based on zero knowledge of a candidate except some external quality. And I teach in business schools. You teach in a graduate school of public service? What in the world are you teaching?” – Virginia, Ph.D., M.B.A

* “Your statement is correct. Some students, citing the body here at the University of Texas at San Antonio, did vote for Obama because he is Black.” – Thomas (student)

* “If some excruciatingly small minority of people do something for some silly reason, that doesn’t mean it needs to be pointed out by public figures such as yourself. If you think it’s that important, then fine – but you have to be self-aware enough to understand the impact of shining a light on those comments.” – Nathan

* “So what? Lots of people voted for McCain because he was white. Welcome to America.” – Yusuf

* “A good number of people on my own campus cannot give one solid reason why they voted for Obama. They just did. They had no idea how Obama felt on a number of issues. For example, some in my college’s LGBT group believed that Obama was for gay marriage, which was simply not true…

Obama’s presidency will not heal race relations but rather begin the process of dealing with the bigger issues. Unfortunately, far too many from the previous generations do not really want to deal with these issues because it requires us to speak frankly and tear down 40+ years of politically correct speech and ‘acceptable’ behaviors, which honestly hurt everyone more than they help.” – Richard

* “I think it was stupid for you to say ‘Obama cause he’s Black’. It was the wrong thing for you to do. You should have left it out. Never should’ve come out of your mouth.” – Rumar

* “You were great in Houston. We Blacks can be hyper-sensitive. The Blk racism polizi went from identifying overt racism to hidden racism to imaginary racism. What’s next?” – BH007

* “There is a difference between truth and discretion.” – Nakia

* “You did the right thing to report what was told to you. However, often people want confirmation of what they already think and you going on there, talking the truth, made them feel really uncomfortable. Irshad, you’re not here to encourage people’s racial fantasies. I’m proud of you.” – Kosta

* “Why are you bent on creating a bad name for Muslims?… In this program, you managed to create ill feelings towards yourself (a Muslim) in all of BLACK America. Please note: only Blacks identify themselves with Muslims in their struggle to live in America. But in this program you have managed to alienate them also from Muslims. Please have mercy on us (Muslims of America).” – Haroon

* “Should you have said it? I think your whole message is that you should, whether it’s non-Muslims telling Muslims that some of their actions and culture don’t fly, or non-African Americans telling African Americans that racial preference is a form of prejudice even when they benefit from it…

Like Muslims, African Americans have a history of not brooking criticism of their community, believing their victimhood makes them immune. This is not intended to deny any of the African American community’s current and past suffering, but wrong is still wrong. Just think of the audience member who stood up after you and pointed out that African Americans were all survivors of slavery. On some level, true, but that doesn’t make them infallible.” – Mehdi

* “I am an African-American. You said one phrase that caught my attention and it was something like, ‘Every race wants to be recognized for their uniqueness but not reduced to it.’ It is the TRUTH! I feel like we African-Americans get enough recognition, especially compared to the other races. The problem is that some Black people abuse the benefits we get. I see it first hand and I personally know many African-Americans who do so.

My Father, who was born in Ghana, came to the USA with no citizenship and only $50 to his name. If he could become very well-off, send his four other siblings to college and live in a two-storey house, then anything is possible. We need to stop crying about our past and worry about our future or else we will never get over this thing called ‘RACE’! What you said at Texas Southern University inspired me. Unfortunately they cut you off because it was not what they wanted to hear.” – Nana

* “I am thankful for people like you who don’t make political correctness a higher standard than sincerity… BTW: I was in Ghana when Obama visited. He was celebrated as an outstanding hero for being the first ‘Black’ president of the US.” – Sonja

* “You weren’t trying to portray all of his supporters as people who voted for him only because he was black, you were trying to shed light on a particular group of people and a disquieting trend among them. That’s totally valid and is important in confronting race relations in the country. The men who responded to you were clearly partisans who seemed incapable of distinguishing the fact that your comment wasn’t actually about Obama, but the people you were talking about about.” – James

* “You played the role of the small child in The Emperor Has No Clothes parable – except it wasn’t the emperor that you pointed out was a nit wit. It was the the nit wits themselves. Instead of being outraged at the state of the world and their (and our) culpability, they are outraged about you reporting that some people made a serious political choice based on a superficial skin adaptation. No wonder we’re all in the shit, eh?” – Martin

* “Water can shape a dense rock – if but one drop at a time. Bring on the rain, Irshad.” – Phillip

Click here for Part One of this series on racial politics in the US today.
Bookmark and Share AddThis Feed Button
Racial politics and the next generation, part one
Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts on Jan 20, 2010

mlkwiki-425pix.jpg

(Courtesy: WikiCommons)

On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday this past week, I joined MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews, Black radio icon Tom Joyner, and many others to discuss race in “Obama’s America.” The LIVE two-hour event aired from Texas Southern University.

My segment focused on young people and the future of race relations. Something I said early on ignited the emotions of a lot of folks, many supportive and many others enraged. The responses — negative and positive — are still being vented. I’ll post them soon. If you want to weigh in, watch this and this.

To prepare for the broadcast, I asked members of my worldwide Facebook community whether their generation is “color-blind.” The conversation took off like a bat outta hell. Highlights:

* “Every time I hear the term ‘color-blind,’ I gag. Color only becomes an issue if you use it to oppress someone. You can’t help but see color. Sheesh. Enough with this bogus term and let’s get real about racism.” – Rosalind

* “There is no such thing as ‘color-blind,’ only ‘color-neutral’ or ‘color-biased.’ My generation, my friends, are smart enough to take everyone as they come, and being black, I know the look and tone of racists. I see it in my neighborhood speckled with confederate flags. I see it in the looks of the police officers and judges in the ‘wrong counties.’ Racism is far more advanced, and while it’s slimming and suffocating, it still exists.” – Sharonda

* “The younger generation of white Americans are more ‘color-neutral’ than the previous ones. However, that’s not true for other ethnicities. I’m Afghan, and racism and ethnocentrism are sadly thriving in my culture, even amongst the ones that have grown up in the west. Discrimination is alive, especially in the world of dating/marriage. As human beings, we have a long way to go towards real acceptance.” – Naheed

* “I don’t consider myself ‘color-blind’ because I feel it erases part of a person’s history and culture. Our culture is becoming more global by the day. It would be foolish to say we don’t recognize the physical differences, but our generation is noting the possibilities in a positive light.” – Ian

* “There are those of us who see a person’s mood before their color and recognize their color only as something that makes them unique.” – Manda

* “I’ve gotten a couple of my Jewish friends mad because I don’t immediately perceive they are Jewish. Same with friends [in the Middle East] who are Arab Christians and Druze. The fact that I don’t make a push to differentiate them is seen as being insensitive to their unique cultural backgrounds.” – Mehdi

* “In order to become ‘color-blind,’ which I am hoping represents acceptance as a whole human, not avoidance of one’s unique background or culture, individuals must be raised to understand their own fears and frailty. I believe most of our worst behaviors steam from fear – fear of being overlooked, of being less than, of being behind whomever crosses the line first. Raising our children to see individuals versus groups or labels will do more to reduce discrimination than any social or media awareness campaign.” – Michelle

* “Here in India, being fair [lighter-skinned] is a huge plus point, especially among the literate, educated classes, even though we are a multi-coloured nation. No amount of objective reasoning or subjective experiences can cure this disease.” – Chetna

* “Coming from Italy, I hate hearing such discriminatory words as terrone, which means ‘Italian of the South’; negro; Vu Cumpra, which means Moroccans asking ‘do you wanna buy?’ [Vuoi Comprare], frocio, which means ‘faggot’ and stupid words like that. This really hurts me a lot. These words are used by young people every day, in a light-hearted way, like it was normal. We definitely have to do something.” – Juliette

* “I can’t stand the N-word. It doesn’t just affect the black community. The widespread use of it outside of our immediate community is now de-sensitizing any and all Americans. It’s embarrassing to see African-American youths using the N-word, rapid-fire, around elderly caucasians, asians, indians or whatever, essentially forcing these people to get used to this harsh word. We’re becoming de-sensitized to the point of using it N-I-G-G-A style (familiarity) or N-I-G-G-E-R style (racist). For me, there is no distinction between N-I-G-G-E-R and N-I-G-G-A. The first word is an insult while the second word is a term of brotherhood and community. Yet we ALL know that just as a weapon can be used as a tool, any tool can be used as a weapon.”- Antar

* “I think there’s as much racism as there ever has been, but fewer opportunities for discrimination. Anyone can be a racist — no matter their color or station in life – but it takes power or advantage to discriminate.” – Elizabeth

* “I recently attended a student/parent meeting for students who have high school ‘truancy’ issues. Of the 20 or so students reported absent enough to be considered ‘truant,’ only one was white. There were maybe three Hispanics (my son being one) and the rest were Black. My son skipped those hours with his WHITE friends. Where they not marked absent? Did they get out of having to attend the ‘mandatory’ meeting? Maybe the younger generation is color-blind but their lives are not.” – Lauren

* “The U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talked about Obama as a ‘light-skinned black’ who doesn’t have a ‘Negro dialect.’ This was a comment prompted not just by Reid’s prejudices, but also his appraisal of the prejudices that he thought the American electorate shared. However, it was a not a racist comment. On the other hand, there is Bill Clinton’s comment that ‘a few years ago, he [Obama] would have been bringing us coffee,’ allegedly uttered in the heat of the moment to Ted Kennedy when Bill was frustrated by Obama’s success over Hillary. That was indeed a racist comment since it was intended in a hurtful and disparaging way.” – John

* “America’s youth (and many adults) really need to understand that they have an important legacy to pass on to the next generation. The responsibility of standing up for conscience and for what is right includes the true acceptance of all people regardless of skin color or background. We need to show respect for those who have gone before them; those brave souls and countless millions who had a dream, sacrificing their own personal aspirations so that a new nation, conceived in liberty, would not perish from the Earth.” – Ismail

PART TWO WILL BE POSTED IN A FEW DAYS. MEANWHILE, MY FB FANS ARE RECOMMENDING BOOKS, ARTICLES AND VIDEOS FOR FURTHER REFLECTION:

Estherhadas recommends a provocative commentary from the New York Daily News. She says “it’s one Black man’s opinion about why he doesn’t like the term ‘African-American.’”

A quote that stands out for her: “…there is something far from backward about the sound of ‘Negro’ and the magnificent people who used that word to describe themselves. They gave it majesty; they made it luminous… America was bettered by the non-violent, multi-racial civil rights movement, not by those who saw anything less than black-approved self-segregation as a form of selling out. They did not call themselves African-Americans, which is a pretentious term conceived by Jesse Jackson and some black academics.”

*****

Manda recommends a children’s book called The Crayon Box that Talked, by Shane Derolf. She describes it as “beautiful and relevant.”

*****

Jamie recommends a British TV comedy clip featuring an incompetent translator. He warns, “I can see why it could be incredibly offensive, but I also see the humour in it. The first time I watched I could not stop laughing. An important point to make is that the British will almost always mock themselves also.”

*****

Minki recommends the blistering stand-up act of Russell Peters, who “tells the truth in the most humorous manner.” But she cautions, “it is not for everyone…”
Bookmark and Share AddThis Feed Button
What will happen to Habib?
Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Jan 08, 2010

dateline-1-450pix.jpgMartyr in the making? Habib, as shown in “Faith Without Fear” (National Film Board of Canada/90th Parallel Productions)

U.S. media is currently marinated in analysis of what propels — or compels — a Muslim kid to become a terrorist. Through recent interviews, I too have contributed to the buzz. But combative exchanges don’t bring out the finer, nuanced, points of any serious exploration. Nor do they equip us to connect the dots.

Let this post help rectify that problem. Without worry of being interrupted, here’s my step-by-step connecting of several dots:

* While filming my PBS documentary, “Faith Without Fear,” I traveled to Yemen and conversed on-camera with Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard. Although the Yemeni government identified OBL’s bodyguard as an ex-jihadi, an extremist who’d been rehabilitated, the bodyguard affirmed his commitment to global jihad. In fact, he said he’s making plans for the martyrdom of his 5-year-old son, Habib (see the cutie above).

I knew right then and there that government initiatives to de-program jihadis wouldn’t be enough to defeat the spread of this plague. Even without daddy’s shameless recruiting, Habib is susceptible. He has only to switch on his computer.

* Thanks to the Internet, we’re seeing the globalization of grievance. Jihadis are using and abusing the freedom of the Web to preach a false narrative; one that nonetheless taps into a deep emotional need for young Muslims to belong to something more meaningful than watered-down, consumer society.

* The false narrative being preached is, in a nutshell, that the West hates Islam. After all, goes the story, look at how America and its allies slaughter Muslims indiscriminately.

But the reality is that more Muslims are tortured and murdered by other Muslims than by any foreign power. Last month, researchers — most of them Muslims — released a study proving that in the past two years alone, 98% of al-Qaeda’s victims have been innocent Muslims.

*Jihadis bring spiritual justification to their violence by citing Islam. Take, for example, Mohammad Sidique Khan, ringleader of the July 7 bombings in London, England. He left behind a marytr video. In it, Khan invoked UK foreign policy. But before going there, he proudly declared that “Islam is our religion and the prophet is our role model.”

In “Faith Without Fear,” OBL’s former bodyguard made precisely the same statement about the Prophet. Clearly, religious symbolism plays a role in violent jihadism.

* Moderate Muslims deny this. Reform-minded Muslims acknowledge this and are working from within Islam to fix the problem. We believe it’s our duty. The Quran tells us, “God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves.” That’s chapter 13, verse 11. I like to think of it as a 13/11 kind of solution to a 9/11 kind of problem.

* Fear stops many reform-minded Muslims from coming forward. If you want to know what gives rise to that fear, it’s one word: “honor.”

Honor is the cultural custom that requires Muslims to suppress our individuality in order to become property of the community. Which means your life isn’t your own; it belongs to a wider group of people — the family, the tribe, sometimes even the ummah (global Muslim nation).

In turn, that means when a Muslim is accused of dishonoring or shaming by breaking moral norms, the punishment against him or her must be large enough to compensate the family too.

* Tribal honor is so powerful that it afflicts young Muslim-Americans as much as it does the Islamic world. In 2007, PBS sent me and my mother to Detroit for a screening of “Faith Without Fear.” I was roundly pilloried during the Q & A.

As the night wore on, my mom noticed young Muslims gathering in a corner of the room. At the end of the evening, the now-numerous group approached my mom to say, “Thanks for supporting your daughter.”

Mom replied, “That’s nice to hear, but why didn’t you speak up before the reporters left, so that others who think like you would know they’re not alone?”

The kids glanced sheepishly at each other. Then one of them confided a sad truth. “You guys can walk away from Detroit two hours from now,” he whispered, looking at me and mom. “We can’t. And we can’t afford to be accused of dishonoring our families.” This, from a child of the First Amendment.

* Muslim students give me similar explanations when I lecture at American and European universities. These institutions of higher learning are supposed to be citadels of questioning. Yet reform-minded Muslims often cower in fear at the intimidation and outright warnings from members of their school MSA’s (Muslim Students’ Associations). During my book tour a few years back, I learned of a particularly threatening email circulated by a Muslim student group at a major U.S. university.

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?

* Muslims have to challenge the culture of honor within our own communities. This tribal custom comes right out of the desert, which doesn’t reflect the reality of a pluralistic and connected generation. To boot, the culture of honor pre-dates Islam. Why should contemporary Muslims feel trapped and strapped by a non-Islamic, even un-Islamic, mentality?

* Non-Muslims should invest in reform-minded Muslims. Consider how the European Foundation for Democracy (EFD) is going about it. The EFD is bringing together Muslim reformers who would otherwise operate in isolation. Besides creating a network for them, the EFD is giving them access to legislators, policy-makers and journalists so that Muslim reformists can finally be heard. In effect, they’re creating a counter-jihad of ideas.

It remains to seen what will happen to 5-year-old Habib, whose name, in Arabic, means “beloved.” Whatever becomes of him becomes of us. All of us.

dateline-2-450pix.jpg Martyr in the making? Habib, as shown in “Faith Without Fear” (National Film Board of Canada/90th Parallel Productions)
Bookmark and Share AddThis Feed Button
button
Documentary
dvd cover

Irshad’s PBS Documentary: Faith Without Fear follows my journey around the world to reconcile Islam and freedom.

Montgomery County MD- Jan.25,2010
Robert Peterson,65, a long time social studies teacher at Sidwell Friends School was arrested today and charged with child sexual abuse.
Peterson is accused of luring male students to his house and sexually abusing them. He is a teacher at the school attended by the daughters of President and Mrs.Obama. Sidwell is the school for the children of Washington’s elite and charges a base tuition of $30,000 per year.
Letters to the parents were sent home explaining the arrest and firing.

Boys who look at porn grow up to be men who think sexual harassment is acceptable, a new study has found.

By Chris Irvine
Published: 2:11PM GMT 24 Jan 2010

Research into pornography in a dozen countries found that boys who are exposed to pornography found it more difficult to form successful relationships when older, while they were more likely to have casual sexual intercourse.

Previous research has found that six in 10 boys in Britain under 16 have watched pornography, either accidentally or deliberately. The average amount of time they watch porn on the internet is 90 minutes a week.

Related Articles

*
All men watch porn, scientists find
*
Internet porn is changing German sex lives
*
Eight members of paedophile ring found guilty of child porn and sex charges
*
Children who watch adult television have sexual intercourse earlier
*
Men are no more promiscuous than women, survey finds
*
Four inches of fat on waistline increases risk of heart problems

Michael Flood, who carried out the study at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, said: “There is compelling evidence from around the world that pornography has negative effects on individuals and communities.

“Porn is a very poor sex educator because it shows sex in unrealistic ways and fails to address intimacy, love, connection or romance. Often it is quite callous and hostile in its depictions of women.

“It doesn’t mean that every young person is going out to rape somebody, but it does increase the likelihood that will happen.”

John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS), told The Sunday Times: “We had a case in west London where a boy in the first year of primary school was bringing pictures to school and was acting them out in the playground during the break. When they did a home visit the dad was downloading it and it was all over the house.

“It is not an argument for banning it but it is an argument to find better ways to make it harder for kids to get hold of it.”

Petra Boynton, a psychologist, added: “Children are not necessarily looking at porn for gratification. They are doing so because they are bored and not supervised. Often when children look at more extreme porn it is done for bravado so they can laugh and say how disgusting it is.”

Last months scientists at the University of Montreal set out to research the effects of pornography only to abandon their study because they were unable to find any 20-year-old men who had not been exposed to it. They did however find that young boys first watched pornography when they were just 10.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Jan. 24) – A teenage girl has been sentenced to a 90-lash flogging and two months in prison as punishment for assaulting a teacher, a Saudi judge said in an interview published Sunday.
Human rights group Amnesty International said the assault happened after the girl was caught with a camera phone at school.
The teenager’s name was not immediately available. She could be spared with a pardon from King Abdullah, said Judge Riyadh al-Meihdib.
"The verdict was read out to her at the court and she did not object," al-Meihdib told Al-Watan, a national Saudi daily newspaper.
He said the teacher refused to forgive the girl, who will not appeal the case. Camera phones are banned at the school.
Al-Watan quoted the school headmaster describing the girl as "about twenty" years old.
However, Amnesty said the girl is 13.
In a statement Friday, the London-based rights watchdog urged Abdullah to "intervene immediately to ensure that the flogging sentence is rescinded."
"He must also take steps to reform Saudi Arabian law and criminal procedure to ban the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, in particular floggings of children," Amnesty interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone said.
Judge al-Meihdib said his court will issue instructions to local authorities in Jubail to carry out the sentence within two days.
Jubail is located on the Red Sea. Its court sentenced the teenager with the harsh punishment Tuesday.

Reporting from Changning, China – The telephones kept ringing with more orders and although Duan Yuelin kept raising his prices, the demand was inexhaustible. Customers were so eager to buy more that they would ply him with expensive gifts and dinners in fancy restaurants.
His family-run business was racking up sales of as much as $3,000 a month, unimaginable riches for uneducated Chinese rice farmers from southern Hunan province.
What merchandise was he selling? Babies. And the customers were government-run orphanages that paid up to $600 each for newborn girls for adoption in the United States and other Western countries.
"They couldn’t get enough babies. The demand kept going up and up, and so did the prices," recalled Duan, who was released from prison last month after serving about four years of a six-year sentence for child trafficking.
Huddled around a gas stove that barely took the chill out of their ground-floor apartment, Duan and his parents offered a rare look at the inner workings of a "mom and pop" baby-trafficking ring run by members of his family and an illiterate garbage collector with a habit of picking up abandoned babies.
From 2001 to ’05, the ring sold 85 baby girls to six orphanages in Hunan.
His story, which is backed up by hundreds of pages of documents gathered in his 2006 court case, shed light on the secretive process that has seen tens of thousands of unwanted girls born to dirt-poor parents in the Chinese countryside growing up in the United States with names like Kelly and Emily.
"Definitely, all the orphanages gave money for babies," said the 38-year-old Duan, a loquacious man with a boxy haircut.
At first, Duan said, his family members assumed that they weren’t breaking the law because the babies were going to government-run orphanages. It had been an accepted practice among peasant families to sell unwanted children to other families.
But the police didn’t see it that way. Chinese law had been strengthened in 1991 to clearly prohibit commerce in children.
The concern is that not only is paying for babies unethical, it can encourage kidnapping, a rampant problem in China. And when babies are trafficked and their records falsified, they grow up with no sense of where they are from and their heritage.
Although Duan and his family trafficked babies only from the southern province of Guangdong, he says other families were doing the same — bringing in babies from impoverished parts of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces to the west.
The merchandise may have been human, but it was a trading business like any other. Cash on delivery; prices set by laws of supply and demand. The Duans’ supplier in Guangdong would charge extra if a baby was prettier or stronger than the average. The orphanages would often phone in their orders and haggle over the price.
"Sometimes they would give us money in advance to buy the babies. They’d say, ‘We’ll take this many babies at such-and-such a price,’ " Duan recalled.
Duan and five members of his family — two younger sisters, his wife, sister-in-law and brother-in-law — were convicted in 2006 of child trafficking. The others remain in prison. Only Duan was released, on the grounds that he needed to support his parents.
Family members complain that they were made scapegoats in the widespread buying and selling of babies. Several orphanage directors involved were promoted afterward.
"The government was making the big money. . . . We only got a little bit, like the dregs of the tofu," said Duan Fagui, Yuelin’s 59-year-old father. He said that many other families were selling babies to orphanages — "the only difference is that we got caught."
It began in 1993 when Chen Zhijin, Yuelin Duan’s mother, and the two sisters who remain in prison were hired for $1 a day to take care of babies for the orphanage in Changning, a town adjacent to the larger city of Hengyang.
At the time, the Communist Party’s campaign to limit population size was running strong, and overly zealous cadres would sometimes demolish the houses of families that had more than one child (two for peasants if the first was a girl, because rural families wanted boys to carry on the family name).
It is illegal in China to abandon a baby, even at an orphanage, so people would discard their unwanted daughters in the dark of night in cardboard boxes or bamboo baskets. If they were leaving baby near an orphanage, they often would light a firecracker as a signal for the staff to find the child.
"We’d find the babies all over," recalled Chen, a tiny woman in tattered plaid trousers with short hair hugging her face. "They’d be wrapped in rags, filthy. . . . Sometimes they’d have ants all over their face because babies have a sweet smell and the ants like them."
Because Chen worked for the orphanage, rural people sometimes asked her to take their unwanted babies there. The orphanage would accept some, not all; it didn’t have enough caretakers or formula for all the babies.
Then, in 1996 and ’97, the orphanages around Hunan began to participate in a fast-growing program that was sending thousands of baby girls abroad for adoption. For each baby adopted, the supplying orphanage would receive a donation of $3,000 from the adoptive parents.
Instead of rejecting the babies, the local orphanage director began begging Chen to bring in as many as she could, even offering to pay her expenses and then some.
" ‘Do us a favor, auntie,’ " she said the director told her. " ‘Bring us all the abandoned babies you can find.’ "
Five other orphanages opened nearby and were making the same request. By 2000, however, the supply of babies was drying up.
Rising incomes, changing attitudes toward girls and weaker enforcement of the one-child policy had combined to stem the widespread dumping of baby girls. Besides, pregnant women who were insistent on a boy would determine the gender with ultrasound (illegal, but common just the same) and abort female fetuses.
But foreign adoptions were in full swing, with more than 5,000 babies heading to the United States in 2000 alone.
"It used to be that you’d get 50 or 100 yuan [$7.30 or $14.60] per baby, then 700 or 800, but there was more demand and fees kept rising and they’d bring in babies from other provinces," Duan said.
One such place was neighboring Guangdong, the manufacturing hub of China, with a large population of migrant workers who often couldn’t keep their babies.
By chance, the husband of Duan’s sister Meilin got a job in 2001 working on a chicken farm in the small Guangdong city of Wuchuan. Nearby lived an older woman by the name of Liang Guihong, a former garbage collector, who for years had been taking in babies. She sometimes had more than 20 newborns in her home, lined up on blankets on her beds.
The Duan family members saw opportunity. They started buying up the babies to sell to the orphanages in Hunan.
"Liang used to take care of the babies out of kindness, but she turned into a businesswoman," Duan recalled in the interview.
Instead of turning over extra babies to the orphanages in Guangdong, Liang preferred to sell them to traffickers who would pay more to take them to Hunan or adjacent Jianxi province, which also supplied many of the babies adopted in the United States. The Duans say that in addition to the 85 babies she provided them, Liang sold more than 1,000 to orphanages.
The orphanages disguised the origins of the babies, the Duans said.
"They would fabricate the information. They would say that the baby was found at the Sunday market, near the bridge, on the street. Very few of the stories they put in the babies’ files were true. Only the director of the orphanage knew the babies were really from Guangdong," Duan’s father said.
The orphanages had to comply with a law requiring that they look for the birth parents before putting a baby up for adoption. The Hunan civil affairs department put official notices seeking the birth parents of the babies in a local paper, but they were filled with deliberate misinformation about where the babies had been found.
The well-publicized court case involving the Duans prompted the China Center of Adoption Affairs to suspend adoptions from Hunan and warn orphanages against paying for babies. Insiders in the orphanage community here say the practice continues, but with more discretion.
Deng Yuping, director of an orphanage in Yichun in Jiangxi province, said he pays up to $75 to cover transportation costs for people who bring in babies, but that many walk away because they can get more from other orphanages.
"It’s true, some orphanages are paying bigger ‘finder’s fees’ than we are," Deng said.
Orphanage directors acknowledge that they don’t have the resources to make sure that babies brought in had been abandoned.
"We can only take care of the child. It is up to the public security bureau [police] to investigate if that child was really abandoned," said Chen Ming, a former orphanage director who received a suspended sentence in the Duans’ case.
The Chinese government acknowledges that each year 30,000 to 60,000 children go missing, most of them abducted.
The Los Angeles Times reported in September that local family planning officials in Guizhou and Hunan provinces sometimes confiscated babies from families that had violated the one-child policy and then collected money by selling the children for foreign adoption.
There is no evidence, in the Duans’ case, that any of the babies had been kidnapped or forcibly taken from their parents. The Duans insist that even if they broke the law, the babies have had a better life as a result.
"Many of those babies would have died if nobody took them in. I took good care of the babies," said the mother, Chen. "You can be the judge — am I a bad person for what I did?

Before reading this please read the latest four news articles. The webmaster is still trying to teach mehow to publish them in the right place. Pray for patience for him.
At first glance you might not see a connection but if you look more closely you will .
Here it is: the lack of respect for human beings.
To put it another way – treating a human being as if she/he were a THING, rather than a living, conscious, autonomous sacred being.
All of these stories highlight the lack of respect for another human being and the assumption of almost god-like power over another human being.
The root of our work is changing the culture to where women and children are accorded the dignity and respect they deserve just for being human.

A Brooklyn man went on a rampage, murdering his girlfriend and her two young daughters in a stabbing frenzy that left blood dripping into the apartment below, cops and neighbors said yesterday.

When police arrived at the East Flatbush home, they found a horror show – the corpse of a 22-year-old woman wrapped in plastic bags and the bodies of two girls, ages 2 and 5, rolled in a carpet.

Jermaine Ruiz, 24, was preparing to hide the bodies in a Dumpster when cops arrived.

He confessed to killing all three, cops said, and charges were pending.

A neighbor told the Daily News that Ruiz had asked the super Thursday where to find a Dumpster that would hold a large amount of trash.

“It’s heavy and it will smell,” Ruiz said, according to the neighbor.

Police, who are still searching for the murder weapon, said the crime scene was grisly.

“There was a lot of blood in the apartment,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. “It was in complete disarray.”

The crime was uncovered after Ruiz called his father in the Bronx and told him what he had done, cops said.

The father alerted police, and two detectives went to the Rogers Ave. apartment building.

When the suspect opened the door, cops saw the body of his girlfriend, Jessica Ybe, partially covered with plastic bags. Inside, cops spotted the rolled-up carpet with plastic bags covering both ends.

When they opened it up, the two little girls were inside. Ybe and Ruiz had 7-month-old twins together who were with Ruiz’s mom in the Bronx during the killings, cops and family said.

The twins were safe with Ruiz’s mom last night. So much blood was spilled in the stabbings that the woman living directly below Ruiz reported some blood dripped into her kitchen through the ceiling.

“She was completely hysterical,” a neighbor said of the downstairs tenant.

Cops believe the bloodbath happened late Wednesday after a fight erupted between Ruiz and Ybe.

“It was physical, beginning on the street, continuing into the apartment,” Browne said. A neighbor who saw the fight said Ruiz “looked crazy.”

“She was walking away,” said Rahmesha Robinson, 22. “He seemed really mad.”

Neighbors said the couple fought constantly – often about Ruiz smoking in the apartment near the kids.

Fiona Alexander, 25, said she saw Ruiz yesterday morning before cops arrived.

“He seemed troubled,” she said. “He was walking up and down smoking a cigarette like he was crazy, troubled, nervous, jittery.”

Ybe’s older brother said the girl ran away from home years ago and they last spoke in May. “She said she was getting a job at a hospital,” said Gilberto Ybe, 46.

“She was going to bring her kids around, but she never showed up.” “She had no problem with anyone,” he said in tears. “She was a simple girl.”

Her murdered children have two different fathers, the brother said.

“Nobody knew the first father. The father of the second was a bad guy, he stole and used drugs.”

sgoldsmith@nydailynew.com

FAYETTE CITY, Pa. — A Fayette County woman accused of kicking a pregnant woman in the abdomen during an argument over a pair of boots spoke with Channel 11 News on Friday during a hearing.

Barbara Ann Kroskie, 28, of Fayette City, is charged with aggravated assault in the case.

State police said Kroskie assaulted Jennifer Muirhead, 38, at her Fayette City home in November, believing the woman had stolen a pair of boots.

“I had them on my feet,” said Muirhead. “I took them off and handed them to her and the altercation started.”

Police said Kroskie knocked down the pregnant woman then kicked her while threatening to kill her and her child.

Kroskie told Channel 11 News that she wished the incident never happened. She said she hopes everyone involved can get over it and eventually become friends.

A plea agreement has been reached in the case, with the most serious charge being dropped.

If the baby is born and everything is fine, Kroskie will get one year of probation.

If the baby is born and there is a problem, the district attorney’s office will re-file charges.

Muirhead is due in March. She’s had multiple checkups, and everything looks good so far. Doctors said they don’t expect any problems.

HUNTINGTON — Andy Dick, in town for weekend performances at the Funny Bone, was arrested around 4 a.m. Saturday by Huntington Police.

The 44-year-old is charged with two felony counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He is being held at the Western Regional Jail, awaiting arraignment.

According to a press release issued at 12:26 p.m. Saturday from the Huntington Police Department, officers responded to a call at Rum Runners at 819 3rd Ave. to investigate two alleged incidents of a patron engaging in non-consensual sexual contact with a bar employee and another patron.

“Based upon statements of two victims and independent witness accounts alleging that he had engaged in unwanted and uninvited groping of the two victims’ genital areas, Andrew R. Dick (AKA Andy Dick) of South Pasadena, Calif., was arrested and charged with two counts of Sex Abuse in the First Degree,” the press release stated.

After his arrest, Dick was taken to the Western Regional Jail to await an arraignment that was expected to happen sometime after noon on Saturday via video conference with a magistrate at the Cabell County Courthouse.

Tom Schaefer, who took ownership of the Huntington Funny Bone about six months ago, said he was with Dick at Rum Runners prior to the arrest.

“We were at Rum Runners for literally 10 minutes. Nothing happened there except walking through the door and sitting at the bar,” Schaeffer said.

Although the arraignment has not occurred yet, it is anticipated that Dick’s bond will be set at $30,000 for each of the two counts. Schaeffer said he will post $6,000 cash — or 10 percent — to bail Dick out. He said Saturday night’s show will go on as scheduled.

Dick has appeared in various movies, starred in MTV’s The Andy Dick Show for two years earlier this decade and recently appeared on VH1′s “Celebrity Rehab” spin-off “Sober House.”

According to Dick’s biography and various entertainment reports, this is not his first time having issues while on tour.

A July 2008 release from the MTV Newsroom, stated Dick was arrested in California on suspicion of drug possession and sexual battery. He allegedly grabbed and pulled down the tank-top of a 17-year-old girl, exposing her breasts.

It also details a 2007 citation by Columbus Police for urinating on a sidewalk and building. He also was reportedly intoxicated during his standup show and was accused of groping patrons at the comedy club.

In 2007, he also was escorted from “Jimmy Kimmel Live” for repeatedly touching the breasts of guest Ivanka Trump without her permission.

In 2005, he dropped his pants and exposed his genitals to the audience. He was ushered off the stage, and his second show was canceled.

In 2004, he was arrested for indecent exposure outside a McDonald’s.

And in 1999, Dick was arrested for possession of cocaine and marijuana following an arrest for driving his car into a telephone pole in Hollywood.

Dick was never convicted of any of these charges. They were all dismissed. However, he is currently serving a three-year probation for a lesser charge of battery in the 2008 incident involving the teenage girl.

United Nations officials say children have gone missing from hospitals in Haiti since the devastating January 12 earthquake, raising fears of trafficking for adoption abroad.

“We have documented around 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals and not with their own family at the time,” said UNICEF adviser Jean Luc Legrand.

“UNICEF has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti that existed already beforehand.

“Unfortunately, many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption market.”

The agency said it had warned countries during the past week not to step up adoptions from Haiti in the immediate wake of the quake.

However several are fast-tracking adoption procedures already under way, including Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.

Mr Legrand said the situation was similar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Asia five years ago.

Trafficking networks were springing into action immediately after the disaster and taking advantage of the weakness of local authorities and relief coordination “to kidnap children and get them out of the country”.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said child enslavement and trafficking in Haiti was “an existing problem and could easily emerge as a serious issue over the coming weeks and months”.

The UN mission in Haiti has stepped up surveillance of roads, UNICEF officials said.

Mr Legrand said there was separate but only anecdotal evidence of people taking children by road to the neighbouring Dominican Republic and loading children on to planes.

“We have seen over the past years many children being taken out of the country without any legal procedure,” he said.

“This is going on. This is happening now. We are starting to have the first evidence of that, this is unquestionable.”

He was unable to give details on the 15 missing children or their condition or clearly connect the anecdotal observations in Haiti’s chaos with trafficking.

The cases were documented by social workers and by partner non-governmental organisations working for UNICEF in hospitals.

Aftershocks continue

Meanwhile, a pair of brief but relatively strong aftershocks have rocked the capital Port-au-Prince 10 days after the earthquake demolished much of the city.

Some residents ran in panic from concrete buildings, fearing a repeat of the collapses that last week killed at least 75,000 people.

Others are now accustomed to the tremors which still strike every day, and most residents remained concentrated on the struggle to survive and rebuild a semblance of normal economic and social life amid the ruins.

“I’m not really used to it yet, but I’m starting to be less scared,” said 23-year-old student Naomi Renouard.

“I ran like I usually do. I think that it’s God punishing us for our sins, to show us a better way.”

Meanwhile, international rescue teams remained deployed around the city in the increasingly faint hope of finding more survivors amid the rubble, and US troops and UN agencies distributed humanitarian aid.

Many aid groups earlier copped the brunt of a stinging attack from a leading British medical journal which claimed relief workers were more concerned with self-promotion than helping quake survivors.

The Lancet says many agencies on the ground are too obsessed with media coverage and marketing campaigns.

The editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, says instead of working for one common humanitarian goal, many organisations in Haiti are competing against one another.

By Tessa Cunningham
Last updated at 10:04 AM on 21st January 2010

In March last year, housewife Helen Stockford was taken hostage in her own home. For five hours she endured rape and sickening abuse. Shockingly, her attacker was a convicted killer, released on parole just eight months earlier, who was now attempting to re-enact his previous murder. Here Helen, 40, who lives in Bristol with her husband, Richard, 42, a builder, and their five children, bravely waives her anonymity to tell her story.

Every morning I wake with the face of a woman I’ve never met stamped on my memory. This stranger haunts my every step. I know her name. I know her age. I know where she lived and I know to the last gruesome detail how she died. It was how I was supposed to die too.

Mary Wainwright was barbarically tortured and murdered in her own home. And I can relive every agonising moment of her suffering. I know how her killer slashed her face, hideously disfigured her and watched as she choked on her own blood.

I know all this because ten months ago her killer, Mark Shirley, broke into my home. He held me at knifepoint, stripped me naked and raped me repeatedly, just as he’d raped Mary. He abused me in the most sickening manner, all the time threatening to kill me, just as he’d killed Mary. My ordeal lasted five hours. I was saved only when my eldest son, Kyle, 20 returned from work.

I’m consumed with pity for Mary, a kindly 67-year- old widow, and with cold fury towards her killer  -  and a legal system that let him attack again in exactly the same way.

Branded ‘evil’ and ‘dangerous’, Shirley was just 16 when he was given a life sentence in 1987 for Mary’s murder. So how on earth was he allowed to roam free when he’s clearly so deeply sick?

Shirley told me that he had picked me because I was so trusting. The truth is, like most of us, my husband Richard and I trusted the police and probation services to keep us safe from convicted killers. We have been betrayed in the most horrific manner imaginable. That’s why I am waiving my right to anonymity. I am determined to do all I can to stop Mark Shirley ever being allowed free again. He is deeply dangerous. I know because the sickening depravity of his attack on Mary, was re-enacted on me. This monster is incurable.

When Richard and I first met Shirley in the summer of 2006, we had absolutely no idea of his horrific background and that he’d been released on parole just three years earlier after serving 16 years for murder. Neither did his girlfriend  -  my next-door neighbour Karen  -  who had met him at Sainsbury’s where they both worked.

She introduced him to me one morning in our children’s school playground. We have been friends for years, involved in the minutiae of each other’s lives  -  coffee mornings, play dates and sleepovers.

She’s a single mother and I was delighted that she had found a nice boyfriend. Happy-go-lucky, outgoing and intelligent, Shirley seemed very likeable. He also appeared honest and open. We had no idea what that facade really hid. One evening, as we all shared a drink together, he told us frankly that he had been in prison.

Richard and I were surprised. But we were too polite to pry and simply assumed that it was for some non-violent crime such as shoplifting. Now, we could kick ourselves for being so trusting.

Richard in particular blames himself, and that destroys me. One of the things I love about him is that he’s kind, generous and eager to see the best in people.

We met at Gatwick Airport when we were both flying to Spain on holiday with separate groups of friends 23 years ago. Richard offered me a stick of chewing gum and we’ve been together ever since, having five children together; Kyle, 20, two other sons aged 19 and nine, and daughters now 12 and 13.

We had known Mark Shirley, 39, for around six months when, in January 2007, he was arrested for drink-driving and, because he was still on parole for murder, was sent back to prison. It was then that Karen learnt the truth when the probation service explained that he was a killer who had been released on a life licence.

Devastated, Karen ended the relationship there and then. But she was too embarrassed to tell us why. I can’t blame her. I’d probably have done the same. But her decision has destroyed my life.

In fact, we’d virtually forgotten all about Mark Shirley when, in November 2008, Karen went away for the weekend. As usual, I kept an eye on her house, but when she got back she discovered that her laptop was missing.

Unbeknown to us, Shirley had been released from prison four months earlier, again on parole. He has since boasted that he was actually in the house when I arrived to check on it, deciding whether this would be the moment he’d strike. It chills my blood.

However, he only stole the laptop, before disappearing. But, of course, we had no clue that he was back in our neighbourhood, so we were stunned when he turned up on our doorstep on March 12 last year.

Richard and I had been to the supermarket and were staggering up the drive with bags when we saw Shirley crouched beside the front door. He explained that he had arranged with Karen to pick up the motorbike he’d left in her garden.

‘I don’t want you to panic if you see me on her property,’ he said. Richard reassured him. He even listened patiently while Shirley poured out his sorrows, explaining how much he loved Karen and was devastated that she had ended their relationship.

If anything, Richard felt sorry for him. Sure enough, the next day Shirley turned up in Karen’s garden to retrieve his motorbike, waving cheerily at me. I assumed that was the last I would ever see of him.

How wrong I was. Friday, March 20, 2009, started like any other normal day, with a mad scramble to get the children off to school. Richard left as usual for his job with a building company. He works extremely long hours and I knew I wouldn’t see him again until the evening.

I did the school run with my younger children then, back home, I made myself a cup of coffee and dragged the vacuum cleaner upstairs to start my housework.

It was 8.40am when I came back downstairs. My kitchen and dining room are open plan, leading onto a conservatory, and it was eerily dark. The blinds were all drawn. I knew I hadn’t touched them.

And there, sitting at my kitchen table was Mark Shirley. My blood froze. His skin was a sick grey colour, he reeked of alcohol and his eyes were staring at me. It was like looking at a completely different man from the charming supermarket assistant I’d been introduced to all those months earlier.

My voice was tight with fear as I asked him what he was doing. Shirley shrugged: ‘I did knock, but you didn’t hear me,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d pop in for a cup of coffee.’

When I asked why he’d drawn my blinds, he grinned at me. That hideous smile scared me more than anything.

Fighting to keep control, I told him that he must leave, as I had to go out. That’s when he snapped. ‘Sit down,’ he snarled. He looked so menacing, I didn’t dare argue. Then, as he sat down at the other end of my table, he began telling me how he had once murdered a woman.

He had stalked Mary Wainwright for weeks, before breaking into her flat and subjecting her to hours of torture. ‘She was a lovely, trusting woman, just like you,’ he said.

I felt sick with terror. Then he grabbed a flickknife from his pocket and started brandishing it in my face. ‘I’m going to make you smell as sweet as Mary,’ he said.

My blood ran cold. I knew in that instant that in his twisted mind I had become Mary and he was going to reenact every second of his horrific fantasy on me. It was like being trapped in a maniac’s nightmare.

Self-preservation kicked in. I would do anything  -  however disgusting and degrading  -  to stay alive. Sometimes I hate myself for what I did. I wish I had fought, but I expect most mothers would do the same. Whatever I endured was worth it to save my children from the pain of losing their mother.

My children’s faces swam before my eyes. I imagined them waiting in the playground for a mother who never turned up. I saw them bursting in through the door, laughing and chatting and then seeing my butchered body. I’m convinced that’s what saved me.

For the next four hours, Shirley subjected me to things I can hardly bear to remember, let alone repeat. He ripped my clothes off and used his knife to slash my bra. I’m such a private person, I even undress in the dark, but now this monster was stripping me like a slab of meat.

Over and over he called me Mary. He ran the knife up and down my body. I was in hell. It was like lying on an operating table, waiting for the surgeon’s first cut.

He had slung his open rucksack against my fridge. Inside I could see more knives and a circular cutter. I knew they were meant for me.

And all the time Shirley kept maniacally muttering to himself that he needed to work out which way he should cut me so that I would smell as sweet as Mary. My stomach churned when he told me he had cut her face to shreds.

He raped me four times and abused me with the knife. I cannot describe the agony. Then he lay on top of me and sniffed my skin. ‘Fridays and Saturdays are good days to kill,’ he murmured, his breath reeking of alcohol.

I felt sickened and humiliated. Having this monster smell my body was horrific. My skin crawls just thinking of it and I know that however often I wash myself I will never rid myself of the memory.

One moment he was sobbing. The next he was laughing maniacally. Then he started ranting to himself. He had an obsession with two pence pieces and had left one on Mary’s dead body when he killed her.

It became clear he’d planned to do the same with me, but he couldn’t find the coin he’d brought with him. Perhaps that bought me time. I don’t know.

I am in absolutely no doubt that Shirley intended to kill me. He’d planned the attack scrupulously. To cover his tracks, he even used my mobile phone to send himself texts, so that it would appear he wasn’t with me that afternoon.

But suddenly, just before 2pm, there was a knock on the conservatory door. Shirley froze. Then I heard my son calling my name. Kyle doesn’t live at home any more, but pops in most days. Shirley panicked. He grabbed my clothes and started dressing me. I was so frightened, my knees buckled and I crashed to the floor.

Shirley forced me to my feet and pushed me towards the door. I don’t know to this day why I didn’t scream my head off. I think I was simply too traumatised. I let Kyle in and watched as Shirley greeted him cheerfully.

It was utterly horrific. He’s so devious you would never have guessed from his cool demeanour that minutes earlier he had been planning to murder me.

But as he left, he grabbed my arm and whispered: ‘If you tell anyone what’s happened I will come back and kill you and your children.’

Afterwards, I went on to autopilot. Kyle sat on the sofa and started telling me all about his day. I didn’t hear a word. Somehow I managed to nod in all the right places, but my mind was trapped in the nightmare I’d just lived through.

My heart was thumping. I was in a total daze. I was so traumatised I didn’t even think to change my clothes or shower.

Even when Richard came home at 3pm, I managed to greet him as normal.

And I picked up the children from school in the same clothes I’d had on during the attack.

It was almost an out- of-body experience. I was looking down at myself going through the motions of my old life when everything had changed for ever.

Incredible as it now seems, for the next few days I lived with this terrible secret. I didn’t tell a soul. Not Richard. Not the police.

Now, I can see that I should have dialled 999 the instant Shirley left, but I was frozen with fear and shock.

And all the time he kept texting me, warning me not to talk. Richard couldn’t understand why I cringed every time he came near me and snapped at the slightest thing.

It was only three days later that I cracked. Shirley had been texting Karen, too, despite being warned to keep away from her. She called me to ask if I’d sit in on her conversation with his probation officer.

I grabbed the phone: ‘Did Shirley cut Mary’s face off? I need to know,’ I pleaded. I then blurted out some of what had happened.

The next few days are a blur. The police arrested Shirley. They combed our house for evidence, taking away the farmhouse kitchen table. I hadn’t been able to look at it.

I still felt too ashamed to tell Richard. The police told him for me. He held me close and kissed me tenderly, but we both knew there was nothing anyone could do to blot out the pain.

Kyle was furious when he learnt what had happened. He will never forgive himself for shaking Shirley’s hand minutes after he’d raped his mother. He wanted to punish him. So did Richard.

I kept reassuring them that Shirley would get his just desserts in court. I still didn’t know exactly how he had maimed Mary. The police wouldn’t tell me, in case it harmed my evidence. Nor could I receive any counselling in case it affected my evidence in court.

Instead, I just clung to the hope that when the judge heard my story, my nightmare would all be over. How wrong I was.

Shirley appeared at Bristol Crown Court just before Christmas. I listened transfixed in horror as the prosecution outlined the details of his attack on Mary. I knew every detail already  -  Shirley had told me the whole story, from the way he had stalked her to the way he had mutilated her and left her to choke to death on her own blood.

Why had this monster ever been allowed to walk free? That’s why I was devastated when the judge announced the sentence. Shirley  -  who denied all the charges  -  was found guilty of false imprisonment, rape and three charges of assault.

But although he was sentenced to life in prison, he can apply for parole again in just nine years.

Justice has not been done. This monster has already received two chances. Does he really deserve a third?

The police say I had a lucky escape. In my darker moments I wonder if I really have. I have been committed to a living hell. I am trapped in this monster’s nightmare with no means of escape.

Richard and I have a very strong marriage, but we’ve lost the emotional and physical closeness we once had.

I find it hard to let him touch me. I never look at myself in the mirror any more. My body is defiled. I lie in the bath at night and scrub away at my skin, but I never feel clean.

I’m scared to be home alone and petrified of going out. I cringe every time a man passes me in the street. I have been prescribed antidepressants and will start counselling soon.

Richard has lost his job because his employer was unwilling to give him compassionate leave to look after me in the weeks after the attack. He’s worked hard his entire life, but we now survive on benefits.

I think about Mary every moment of the day. In a bid to get closure, I have visited the flat in Cardiff where she died. It was exactly as Shirley described it.

When I am strong enough, I will visit her grave. I have a little angel which I took to court every day to give me strength. I will lay it on her grave in the hope it brings her some peace.

Mary didn’t get justice. Neither did I. How many more of us will have to suffer before the authorities learn that killers such as Mark Shirley should never be allowed to go free?

Georgia Sports 4:11 p.m. Tuesday, January 19, 20

UF radio broadcaster faces child porn charges

The Associated Press

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Longtime University of Florida sports broadcaster Steve Babik (BAB-ick) is facing federal charges of having child pornography on his home computer.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Tuesday that the 50-year-old Babik is charged with one count of receipt and distribution of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

His attorney, Larry Turner, says Babik appeared in court Tuesday, pleaded not guilty and was released with restrictions. Turner says it was too early in his investigation to comment on the charges.

The University Athletic Association said Tuesday that Babik has been fired.

Babik was the sideline reporter for Gators football games and handled other radio duties. He had been at UF since 1987.

Saudi girl, 13, sentenced to 90 lashes after she took a mobile phone to school

By Mike Theodoulou
Last updated at 1:25 PM on 20th January 2010

A 13-year-old girl has been sentenced to 90 lashes and two months’ prison in Saudi Arabia after she took a mobile phone to school.

A court ordered the girl to be flogged in front of her classmates following an assault on the school principal, according to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan.

After the assault she was discovered to have concealed a mobile phone, breaking strict Saudi regulations banning the use of camera-equipped phones in girls’ schools.
A criminal gets a public flogging by two officials in Saudi Arabia

Brutal: public floggings, such as in this archive picture, are a common punishment handed down by religious courts in Saudi Arabia

Al-Watan said a court in the northeastern Gulf port of Jubail had sentenced the girl to 90 lashes inside her school, followed by two months’ detention.

The punishment is harsher than tha dished out to some robbers and looters.

Saudi Arabia, a leading US ally in the Middle East, is an absolute monarchy controlled by the Al-Saud ruling tribe, and lacks any legal code.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Absolute monarchy: King Abdullah, ruler of the oil-rich state, meeting Gordon Brown on a 2007 visit to Downing Street

King Abdullah has promoted some social reforms since taking the throne in 2005 but diplomats say he is held back by religious clerics and princes.

Cinemas and music concerts are banned, while many restaurants and even some shopping centres cater to families only, especially on holidays.

Religious police roam streets to make sure no unrelated men and women mix.

The Saudi court system is exclusively controlled Wahahbi/Salafi clerics, and bans the employment of non-Salafi citizens, especially as judges.

Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading country in the use of torture-by-flogging, public beheadings and publically crucifying condemned prisoners.

The country crucified two people in 2009, including one in the capital Riyadh during President Barak Obama’s visit last April.

In September, twenty Saudi teenagers who ransacked shops and restaurants were publicly flogged.

Newspapers reported that the teenagers received at least 30 lashes each in a public square.

Most of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks in 2001 came from Saudi Arabia.

By Pamela Geller

y Google Back to Google News
‘Illegal’ Saudi women’s gym shut: media

(AFP) – 2 hours ago

RIYADH — Health authorities in Jeddah have shut down an “illegal” women’s fitness centre attached to a hospital, closing one of the few venues where Saudi women are able to exercise, local media said on Wednesday.

Although health officials have repeatedly blamed the high rates of heart disease and diabetes in the kingdom on poor diets and lack of exercise, health authorities said women’s fitness centres were not allowed.

“Anyone who violates regulations governing the running of health facilities would be punished severely because this involves people’s health,” Jeddah health official Muhammed Abdul Jawad told the English-language Arab News.

The reports did not identify the Jeddah hospital affected, but a photograph in the Saudi Gazette showed an official sealing the club door with an announcement reading “Closed on the order of Jeddah Health Affairs.”

While gyms for men in the gender-segregated conservative Islamic society are permitted, women’s health clubs are forbidden, despite a clear demand shown by a surge in underground facilities in the past two years.

But last year a number of stand-alone women’s gyms were shut, though some attached to or inside hospital premises continued to function.

The reports said the country’s municipal and rural affairs ministry had recently closed two other gyms in the Red City of Jeddah and one in Dammam, eastern Saudi Arabia.