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Amnesty International Tag

Posted by Mirabelle Ward on July 07, 2015 2 Comments
Yesterday the Washington Free Beacon reported that that the Obama administration is willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a veto override when Congress votes on the Iran deal. This morning, CNN hosted a veritable White House press conference about the subject. Former State Department Iran negotiator Hillary Mann Leverett and Obama shill and Haaretz contributor Peter Beinart were anchor Chris Cuomo's entire panel. One point that Beinart made that deserves examination is his assertion that “Iranian dissidents want this deal to go through,” on the theory that opening up Iran will lessen the regime’s human rights abuses. He’s made the same argument here, and we're likely to hear it again in the coming weeks. It's worth asking, then, whether the human rights situation in Iran stands to improve. To begin with, Beinart is being disingenuous when he says that dissidents support the deal. Eli Lake documented in 2013 that, while some support it, many others do not.

Posted by David Gerstman on June 23, 2015 7 Comments
First the good news, the so-called Schabas report, the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry into last year's war between Hamas and Israel, isn't as bad as its predecessor, the infamous, discredited Goldstone report. But it's still pretty bad. The Schabas report is named for the judge who originally headed it, William Schabas. Schabas stepped down when it was reported that he had done paid work for the Palestinian Authority. Schabas had previously said that he wanted to see Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried for war crimes had to step down when it was clear that he was hopelessly compromised. After he resigned the commission was headed by former New York State justice, Mary McGowan Davis. For the most part media outlets reported that the conclusion of the report is that both sides "may have committed war crimes." There are two problems with this. The first is that it is inconclusive. The second and more serious one is that it put Israel and Hamas, which precipitated the conflict by launching rockets into Israel, on the same level. Rockets fired from Gaza civilian area at Israel

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 13, 2015 6 Comments
Much of the war against Israel is fought in the media and through deceptive "Non-Governmental Organizations" which issue endless distorted reports against Israel. There hardly is any pretense of objectivity anymore -- there is an attempt to tie Israel's hands when dealing with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which strategically use civilians as shields. In Gaza, the media was intimidated by Hamas, and maintained a near-silence about the use of the main hospital in Gaza as a Hamas headquarters, and the firing of rockets from near schools, apartments and hospitals. But a few reports leaked out and some reporters admitted to the distorted reporting after leaving Gaza: http://youtu.be/Nu-e5qWXx-k This media war is important because one side (Hamas, Hezbollah) uses media outrage as a strategic weapon to shape the physical battlefield.  And biased, agenda-driven NGOs and media organizations are part of the plan. The lastest distortion, which has received wide play on anti-Israel websites and on Facebook, was issued by "Breaking the Silence."

Posted by David Gerstman on May 07, 2015 7 Comments
Last week Iran's foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif appeared in "a conversation" with columnist David Ignatius of The Washington Post at NYU sponsored by the New America Foundation. There were those in the media who described Zarif as "suave" and "diplomatic," but not everyone was impressed with Zarif's performance. Matthew Continetti went after the supposed moderate in The Appalling Mr. Zarif.
What made Zarif’s appearance all the more nauseating was his pretense of moral standing. He has none. His lecture to the United States took place as his regime held a container ship it had seized in international waters, and as evidence emerged of Iranian violations of U.N. sanctions. It is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies such as Hezbollah and the Houthis and other Shiite militias that are fomenting and exploiting sectarian conflict in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. Iran’s human rights record is abysmal. Since Zarif returned to government in the administration of Hassan Rouhani, there has been a “surge” in executions in Iran. “The authorities restricted freedoms of expression, association, and assembly, arresting, detaining, and prosecuting in unfair trials minority and women’s rights activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and others who voiced dissent” say the right-wing extremists at Amnesty International, whose most recent report catalogues the torture and cruel and unusual punishments of the Iranian regime. ... At NYU Zarif said America will have to lift sanctions on Iran “whether Senator Cotton likes it or not.” The “polite” and “respectful” audience broke into laughter—at Cotton. “I couldn’t resist,” Zarif said. No troll could.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 06, 2015 12 Comments
I will give the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement credit for one thing: It is highly adaptive. The run-of-the mill anti-Israel divestment pushes on college campuses have had only mild success. Most often the attempt to get student government to endorse a boycott of companies doing business in Israel has failed, but there have been some successes, particularly in the U. California system. There have been some high profile losses for BDS on campus, most recently at U. Michigan, where even a watered-down resolution to create a committee to study divesting from Israel was voted down (after last year's divestment resolution failed). The divestment motions are mostly for theater, since student governments have zero power to divest university funds, and no university in the U.S. has gone along with any student anti-Israel resolution. The purpose of these divestment motions is to raise the profile of the anti-Israel movement, and to occupy everyone's time arguing over how bad Israel is. By contrast, divestment from fossil fuels is gaining some traction even at the administrative level, because there is more of a student and campus consensus. It was only a matter of time that BDS tried to co-opt a larger issue to use against Israel. Some anti-Israel groups at the University of Pennsylvania seem to think they have found a broader theme: Divestment from companies causing "displacement" of people. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports, Controversy sparks over Penn Divest from Displacement (h/t a reader):

Posted by Amy Miller on January 25, 2015 2 Comments
Today, Islamic extremist group Boko Haram launched a three-front assault on northeast Nigeria's largest city, Maidguri, and also raided villages in Adamawa state, burning homes and abducting women and children. Via Fox News:
In Maiduguri, troops blocked roads into the city, which also prevented civilians from escaping. "Coordinated air and land operations are being conducted now," Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade posted on Twitter. He said the 12-hour curfew in place in Maiduguri for more than a year is extended to 24 hours. "We believe hundreds of thousands of civilians are now at grave risk," Amnesty International said. More than 200 combatants have been killed, mainly insurgents, according to soldiers and civilian self-defense fighters who counted bodies. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to reporters.
Although forces in Maiduguri were able to fight back the wave of insurgents, the army at Monguno, just north of Maiduguri, was overwhelmed and Boko Haram was able to seize control of the city.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 14, 2015 3 Comments
Ronald Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech set forth the stark choice facing free societies in the fight against Communism: After the attacks in France and throughout Europe on Jews, often motivated and perpetrated in the name of anti-Zionism, it's no longer possible to sit on the sidelines. It's another time for choosing. Whatever Israel's problems with regard to balancing the fight against terror with preservation of freedom, such problems pale in comparison to what goes on in the rest of the region and most of the world, where balance is not even attempted. We saw it in the intimidation and threats against "journalists" in Gaza during the 2014 summer conflict, where Hamas bullying resulted in refusals to report key facts such as Hamas using schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as rocket firing locations. Some evidence, however, slipped out, particularly after "journalists" left Gaza. That is true also in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, where there is no independent journalism except directed at Israel. Israel and Israel alone is under a microscope from hundreds of journalists and Non-Governmental Organizations whose primary job is to wake up every morning and find something wrong that then can be broadcast through Western and Arab media.

Posted by Amy Miller on October 24, 2014 39 Comments
We have reported extensively on the ongoing tension in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown. Most recently, it was revealed that the shooting was not an act of random racial violence, but a likely act of self-defense. That hasn't stopped the NGOs from marching in with their reports, though. A recent report from Amnesty International accuses members of the Ferguson police department of committing human rights abuses as they attempted to control protests in the wake of the shooting. Via Reuters:
The Amnesty International report said law enforcement officers should be investigated by U.S. authorities for the abuses, which occurred during weeks of racially charged protests that erupted after white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, on Aug. 9. The use by law enforcement of rubber bullets, tear gas and heavy military equipment and restrictions placed on peaceful protesters all violated international standards, the group said. Amnesty said it sent a delegation to Ferguson from Aug. 14-22 to monitor the situation. ... The report also criticizes a Missouri law that the group said may be unconstitutional because it allows police to use deadly force against someone even if there is no imminent threat of harm. The report calls on state lawmakers to make Missouri law comply with international standards making lethal force by police a last resort, said Rachel Ward, director of research at Amnesty International. "Lethal force is only to be used to protect life when there is an immediate threat," Ward said. "The Missouri statute goes far beyond that. It is of grave concern."
This is nothing new. The global governance sect has a long history of using "international standards" to strongarm local and/or national governments into ceding their sovereignty to the whims of a constantly changing global order.

Posted by New Neo on May 28, 2014 21 Comments
Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, under sentence of death for apostasy, has given birth in a Sudanese prison to a daughter. In reaction to her imprisonment and death sentence, the US Embassy in Sudan has released a statement protesting her incarceration, and a few US Senators have also supported her. Others, including Kelly Ayotte of NH (Ibrahim's wheelchair-bound husband, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, is from Sudan but is a US citizen and a resident of New Hampshire), have gone further and written a letter:
...asking John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, to offer political asylum to Ibrahim. "We also urge you and President Obama to reappoint an Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, whose primary purpose is to monitor, prevent, and respond to this exact type of incident," the letter stated.
Some groups such as Amnesty International are on the case as well. And what of President Barack Obama? The guy who spoke up readily in the Henry Louis Gates arrest and the Zimmerman case? The answer appears to be silence---at least so far---as well as silence from Secretary of State John Kerry. Obama is in the same position vis a vis Islam as Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag herself, by the way, although of course he's not in prison for apostasy. Here are the facts of her life as reported:

Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on May 16, 2014 23 Comments
This horrific story comes on the heels of a 2014 Pew Research Center report that indicated Christians were the religious group most likely to be persecuted worldwide. CNN reported yesterday that Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, a 27 year old Christian Sudanese woman was convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death by a court in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Ibrahim, who is married, was also convicted of "adultery."
According to the rights group Amnesty International, she was convicted of adultery because her marriage to a Christian man was considered void under Sharia law. She was sentenced to 100 lashes for the second crime.
The story is an example of the extreme religious intolerance Christians are facing in many countries throughout the world, although Sudan's basic human rights violations have been noted by the State Department to be particularly egregious.

Posted by Mandy Nagy on July 13, 2013 3 Comments

NSA leaker Edward Snowden has not yet requested temporary asylum from Russia, after his appeal for assistance from human rights groups Friday. From the NY Times: Senior Kremlin officials said Saturday that Russia’s Federal Migration Service had not yet received a formal appeal for asylum from Edward...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 31, 2011 3 Comments

Call the U.N. Human Rights Council to condemn Israel, because obviously this was a Zionist plot to discredit the Egyptian Spring, Egyptian general admits 'virginity checks' conducted on protesters:A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 19, 2009 0 Comments

The headline of an Op-ed on the website of The Guardian newspaper, the left-wing British newspaper, started out promisingly enough: "Hamas No, Human Rights Yes." The sub-title was even better: "Why are the left and the anti-war movement ignoring Hamas's repression of...

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