Syria accused of using torture on children
Kids as young as 13 plucked from homes and schools for beatings and electrocution by out of control Syrian regime.
The United Nations says hundreds of children have been killed in the crackdown over the past 10 months, and the rights group on Friday highlighted cases of children shot in their homes or on the street, or grabbed from schools.
Human Rights Watch released 12 examples of children being tortured in detention and said many more may have suffered similar treatment.
“Children, some as young as 13, reported to Human Rights Watch that officers kept them in solitary confinement, severely beat and shocked them, burned them with cigarettes, and left them to dangle from metal handcuffs for hours,” said the report.
According to one of the children’s mother, security officers burned her son with cigarettes on his neck and hands and threw boiling water on his body.
Another 13-year-old told Human Rights Watch that security forces tortured him for three days at a military security branch after he was detained in May.
He said he fell unconscious after being shocked in the stomach.
“When they interrogated me the second time, they beat me and electrocuted me again. The third time they had some pliers, and they pulled out my toenail,”
Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council to demand that the Syrian government end all human rights violations and co-operate with a UN Human Rights Council investigation and Arab League monitors.
57 children were murdered yesterday alone during, what’s now being called, the ‘Hums Massacre’.
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Iran is detaining relatives of journalists in bid to silence them
The Iranian government has arrested relatives of Persian-language journalists working abroad for the BBC in a bid to silence them, the British Broadcasting Corporation said Friday.
BBC Director General Mark Thompson said the sister of a BBC Persian journalist was arrested last week and held in solitary confinement on unspecified charges at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, before being released on bail.
“Her treatment was utterly deplorable and we condemn it in the strongest terms,” Thompson wrote in a blog, adding that it was only the latest incident “in a campaign of bullying and harassment by the Iranian authorities”.
“In recent months a number of relatives of members of BBC Persian staff have been detained for short periods of time by the Iranian authorities and urged to get their relatives in London to either stop working for the BBC, or to ‘cooperate’ with Iranian intelligence officials,”
Relatives passports had been confiscated, preventing them leaving Iran, while BBC staff had been accused in the Iranian media of offences such as sexual assault, drug trafficking and converting from Islam to Christianity.
Iran has frequently accused the BBC of fuelling the unrest that broke out following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.
During the post-election crisis, BBC Persian conducted hundreds of telephone interviews with protesters who provided eyewitness accounts of deaths, injuries, and arbitrary arrests carried out by Iranian security forces.
Foreign Office minister Burt said the Iranian authorities had a “shameful track record” of using family members to put pressure on Iranian lawyers, journalists and human rights activists.
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Welfare Drug Testing Bill (Temporarily) Withdrawn After Amended To Include Testing Lawmakers
A Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly withdrew his bill to create a pilot program for drug testing welfare applicants Friday after one of his Democratic colleagues amended the measure to require drug testing for lawmakers.
“There was an amendment offered today that required drug testing for legislators as well and it passed, which led me to have to then withdraw the bill,” said Rep. Jud McMillin (R-Brookville), sponsor of the original welfare drug testing bill.
In the past year Republican lawmakers have pursued welfare drug testing in more than 30 states and in Congress, and some bills have even targeted people who claim unemployment insurance and food stamps, despite scanty evidence the poor and jobless are disproportionately on drugs. Democrats in several states have countered with bills to require drug testing elected officials. Indiana state Rep. Ryan Dvorak (D-South Bend) introduced just such an amendment on Friday.
“After it passed, Rep. McMillin got pretty upset and pulled his bill,” Dvorak said. “If anything, I think it points out some of the hypocrisy. … If we’re going to impose standards on drug testing, then it should apply to everybody who receives government money.”
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Today Obama declared the U.S. “a battlefield” by signing the NDAA.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 allows Dictator President Obama (and future presidents) to detain any person, including U.S. citizens, INDEFINITELY with out trial or charge if they support al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces and declare the U.S. a battlefield.
In London, Occupy London protesters have been labeled by their government as terrorist. If the U.S. follows, Occupy Protesters, or any protester that the government deems a terrorist could be detained by The United States Armed Forces and even transferred to foreign prisons where they can be tortured.
2012 will definitely be an interesting year.
In 2008, the U.S. spent $700 billion bailing out bankers, but what we often forget is the U.S. also paid $451 billion in interest on the national debt, to the same bankers.
Many people are asking why the NYPD are so violent to OWS protesters. Did they forget about the $4.6 million JPMorgan donated to their body guards?
