Teen sentenced to 90 years for brutal attack

A 17-year-old suburban teen was sentenced Monday to 90 years in prison in the brutal attack of a Hispanic boy who was beaten, kicked, stomped, burned and sodomized with the plastic pole of a patio umbrella.

Keith Turner was the second teen convicted of aggravated sexual assault in the April attack at a house in Spring, north of Houston. David Henry Tuck, 18, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on Nov. 16.

Turner was convicted late Friday after about 90 minutes of deliberations. The jury took about five hours over two days to reach the sentence of 90 years.

Turner will have to serve at least 30 years before becoming eligible for parole.

Although Turner was the younger of the assailants and didn’t have the history of racial attacks that colored Tuck’s past, it was his idea to use the patio umbrella pole in the attack.

Turner, Tuck, the victim and two other teens were partying at a house in Spring, drinking and taking cocaine and Xanax. Twelve-year-old Danielle Sons, who was at the party at her house, told the other boys that the victim had tried to kiss her, prompting the attack.

Tuck shouted racial slurs and “white power” as he and Turner kicked the then 17-year-old, cut him with a knife, sodomized him with a plastic pipe and poured bleach on him in an assault that lasted up to five hours. The victim was left bleeding in the backyard until dawn, when Sons and her brother, Gus, finally woke their mother, who slept through it.

During Turner’s trial, jurors saw a videotaped statement by Turner in which he admitted to being the first one to grab the umbrella pole and joking about using it to sodomize the victim.

Jail for woman who kept sister-in-law as slave

A mother of six was jailed for seven years today for turning her sister-in-law into a domestic slave.

Antonia Pearson-Gaballonie, 35, kept Veronica Sandeman, now 26, as a slave, assaulted her, forced her to work naked and made her beg for food over a number of years, York Crown Court heard.

Pearson-Gaballonie, of New Lane, Acomb, York, was sentenced to a total of seven years after being found guilty earlier of false imprisonment, making threats to kill and six counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm following a week-long trial.

Her partner Neil Pearson, 35, whom she married in June 2004, was jailed for two years after being found guilty of one count of aiding and abetting an assault.

The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, told Pearson-Gaballonie she was a "manipulative and cunning" individual who committed "callous and brutal" attacks on her sister-in-law in a period of systematic abuse, much of which was carried out while the victim was falsely imprisoned and forced to work naked under the gaze of Pearson.

The judge also said she had gone to great lengths to avoid the trial, including making an attempt on her life, and even initially refused to enter the dock for the sentencing hearing today.

Stop the genocide

Our position: It would be outrageous for the U.N. not to intervene in Darfur.
Posted October 30, 2006

The government of Sudan is widely believed to be behind the genocide in the country's Darfur region that has claimed more than 200,000 lives and driven millions from their homes. Yet even with a new surge in violence, the United Nations is still waiting for permission from that same government to deploy a peacekeeping force to stop the killing. No wonder some critics of the United Nations consider it worthless.

It's way past time for the U.N. Security Council to dispatch the peacekeepers, whether or not Sudan's leaders agree.

U.N. intervention in a country against its wishes should be reserved for exceptional cases. But genocide more than meets that standard.

For three years, Arab militias backed by Sudan's government have looted, burned, raped and murdered their way through black African villages in Darfur to suppress a rebellion in the region. Two years ago, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell correctly labeled it genocide. A recent report from the United Nations itself concluded, "Government knowledge, if not complicity, in the attacks is almost certain."

A 7,000-troop African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur has been unable to stop the violence. That force lacks the manpower, equipment and mandate.

Now, amid recent gains by the rebels, Sudan's government is vowing a new offensive to crush them. Last week, the government kicked out the United Nations' top envoy in the country. And Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, also threatened to expel humanitarian relief groups and foreign media from Darfur. Hundreds of thousands more lives are in peril.

The Security Council passed a resolution in late August calling for a 22,000-troop U.N. peacekeeping force to replace the smaller African Union force in Darfur. Ideally, African and Arab countries would supply the manpower.

The presence of U.S. and European troops in yet another Muslim country could ignite opposition that would hamper a peacekeeping mission. But the United States and its European allies can work through NATO to provide logistical support for the U.N. force and take other steps to assist it, such as establishing a no-fly zone over Darfur.

If the United States and other council members are committed to ending the nightmare in Darfur, they will apply all their diplomatic leverage to overcoming opposition to intervention from China and other apologists for Sudan.

A little more than a decade ago, the United Nations failed to stop a genocidal rampage in Rwanda that left hundreds of thousands of people dead. A U.N. refusal to intervene in Darfur would deal another crushing blow to its credibility, and confirm the harshest views of its critics.

China faces suspicions about organ harvesting

By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

A pair of human rights activists are charging that "a crime against humanity" is happening on a large scale in China. Members of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government since 1999, are being "in effect, murdered for their organs," which are being sold to buyers from China and abroad, says David Kilgour, a former member of the Canadian Parliament and coauthor of the report.

Mr. Kilgour and his partner, Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, are now traveling the world speaking with governments and professional and human rights organizations urging further investigation of the allegations. Early last month, the pair released a report laying out details of an investigation they undertook on behalf of a Falun Gong support group, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China.

"Ideally, we would like to pursue further research before we come to any firm conclusions," the two conceded, while noting the difficulty in obtaining accurate information within the closed society of the People's Republic of China.

But while the evidence may not persuade everyone who reads their report, it is strong enough in their minds to render a verdict. "Based on what we now know, we have come to the regrettable conclusion that the allegations are true," the report says. "We believe that there has been and continues today to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners."

The source of some 41,500 organ transplants in China in the years 2000 through 2005 remains unexplained, leading to the possibility that they may be the result of the execution of Falun Gong members, the report says.

The Chinese government "since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience," the report alleges. Their vital organs were seized involuntarily "for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries."

The Falun Gong movement, whose guiding principles are truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, was founded in China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, who now lives in the United States. Its philosophies incorporate ideas from Buddhism and Taoism and include slow-motion meditative exercises. Falun Gong is generally seen as a peaceful and law-abiding movement outside China, but within its borders it is officially deemed a dangerous cult. For several years, Falun Gong followers around the world have been actively protesting the treatment of the movement's adherents inside China.

The Chinese Embassy in Canada issued a reply to the Kilgour-Matas report July 6, the same day the report was released. China abides by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs and require written voluntary consent from donors, the statement said. "It is obvious that their purpose is to smear China's image," the statement continues. "[T]he so-called 'independent investigation report' made by a few Canadians based on rumors and false allegations is groundless and biased."

In a phone call, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Li Jianhua, also called the allegations "totally fake" and said the Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them meritless.

But by immediately dismissing their report "out of hand," Kilgour and Mr. Matas said in a reply, the Chinese government has admitted that it has conducted "no investigations to determine whether or not what the report contains is true."

Whether the organ harvesting - taking corneas, livers, hearts, and kidneys for transplantation - is being done as part of the official crackdown on Falun Gong or simply as the result of local corruption in prisons and hospitals around China is not clear, Matas says, and may be a result of both motives. China has a history of harvesting organs from executed prisoners, he says. The number of Falun Gong prisoners in China remains a mystery outside China. The Falun Gong "are completely defenseless in prison: unidentified, no protectors," Matas says. "They become an easy victim for this form of greed."

The Kilgour-Matas report "makes a very convincing case," says Kirk Allison, associate director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine at the University of Minnesota. He says academic journals and conferences now should take an ethical stand to reject papers and presentations from authors who rely on data derived from transplantations performed in China.

"Given the evidence at hand, international transplant patients who obtain organs in China do so at the cost of benefiting from, and tacitly supporting, the continuance of an ongoing lethal violation of human dignity and human rights," Dr. Allison said in a published statement circulated at the World Transplantation Congress in Boston last week. "Prospective patients should be informed of this fact and actively discouraged from pursing this avenue of treatment."

Kilgour took on the Falun Gong project last spring after retiring from the Canadian Parliament, where he had been elected as a member since 1979. Neither he nor Matas are Falun Gong practitioners.

In March, the Chinese government announced that a new law, to take effect July 1, would ban sales of human organs and require that donors give written permission for their organs to be transplanted. But, according to Kilgour, the fact that a new law was passed "highlights the fact that there is no such legislation in place now."

India tackles domestic violence

A landmark new law seeking to protect women from domestic violence has come into effect in India.

The law also bans harassment by way of dowry demands and gives sweeping powers to a magistrate to issue protection orders where needed.

Punishment could range from a jail term of up to one year and/or a fine of up to 20,000 rupees ($450).

Every six hours, a young married woman is burned, beaten to death or driven to commit suicide, officials say.

Overall, a crime against women is committed every three minutes in India, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau.

Despite the scale of the problem, there had been no specific legislation to deal with actual abuse or the threat of abuse at home.

Domestic violence, under the new law, includes "actual abuse or the threat of abuse whether physical, sexual, emotional or economic," a statement from the federal ministry of women and child development said.

Wall of silence

The law provides protection to the wife or live-in partner from violence at the hands of the husband or live-in partner or his relatives.

Besides physical violence, the law also covers forcing a wife or partner to look at pornography.

"We have been trying for long to protect women from domestic violence. In India alone, around 70% of women are victim of these violent acts in one or the other form," junior minister for women and child development Renuka Chowdhury told the Press Trust of India news agency.

She said the news law would help provide relief to the women suffering from domestic violence.

Women's activists have welcomed the law, although many say it is not perfect.

They say a bill alone will not help in preventing domestic abuse; what is needed is a change in mind sets.

A survey by the International Institute for Population Studies showed 56% of Indian women believed wife beating to be justified in certain circumstances.

The reasons varied from going out without the husband's permission to cooking a bad meal.

Domestic abuse is often denied by the victims themselves.

Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)

Joseph Kony

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), formed in 1987, is a rebel paramilitary group operating mainly in northern Uganda. The group is engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government in what is now one of Africa's longest-running conflicts. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself a spirit medium, and apparently wishes to establish a state based on his unique interpretation of Biblical millenarianism. The LRA have been accused of widespread human rights violations, including mutilation, torture, rape, the abduction of civilians, the use of child soldiers and a number of massacres.

The Perverse Side of Things

"The Perverse Side of Things"
Torture, Inadequate Detention Conditions, and Excessive Use of Force by Guinean Security Forces

pdf file of report

Student organizes drive to save Darfur

By Cate Biggs, Associate News Editor, cbiggs@smu.edu

August 31, 2006

The Darfur genocide has been a horrifying reality in Sudan that has called SMU student, Denver Nicks, to action. Nicks has created a committee through Students For A Better Society that will attempt to raise awareness about the Darfur situation and help stop the genocide.

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 after the Sudanese government used armed militias to begin a scorched earth campaign, as well as militia attacks that have led to countless human rights violations.

The situation is only worsening thanks to state-sponsored violence, lack of humanitarian aid, famine, starvation, disease and a program of systematic rape of African women.

With more than 3.5 million people starving, 2.5 million displaced due to the extreme violence, and more than 400.000 dead, one SMU student has decided to take a stand.

Nicks first became involved with the Darfur genocide when a friend from another university began a campaign and sparked Nicks’ interest. His involvement began by simply wearing his “Save Darfur” t-shirts and bracelet, but Nicks wanted to take a more hands-on approach. The grim situation made him want to take the campaign to the SMU student body to raise more awareness for the cause.

This summer Nicks attended a conference in Washington D.C. on student activism in Darfur, which furthered his drive to become more closely involved with the campaign to end the genocide.

Nicks will conduct a meeting on Thursday, Aug. 31, at 5 p.m. in Hughes-Trigg Portico E to discuss the plans for the anti-genocide committee. His main objective is to raise campus awareness about the genocide in Darfur through the sale of t-shirts and fundraising. The money from fundraising will go either to the cause of raising more awareness about Darfur, or to the International Rescue Committee Fund to assist Darfur directly.

Another huge goal of the committee will be to pressure political leaders to take a stand and assist with genocide relief.

“In the state of Texas the political leaders have very low scores when it comes to assisting with the Darfur genocide. We hope to pressure them to do more to help,” stated Nicks.

All of the Texas state representatives and senators have a grade of C or below on their assistance with the Darfur genocide. Sen. John Cornyn ranks the lowest with a grade of F, while the majority of representatives have a scored a D. (www.darfurscore.org/grades/texas).

Nicks encourages anyone who is appalled by genocide and wishes to assist with the effort to attend the meeting.

“I am so excited about the campaign and anyone who is not down with genocide is more than welcome to join,” Nicks stated.

Fore more information please contact Denver Nicks at dnicks@smu.edu

Masha's Story

(click above picture)
Masha was adopted from Russia by a pedophile who raped and starved her for years. She suffered from terrible forms of abuse and torture. The public should be outraged, we should be demanding tougher laws against pedophiles and perverts who hurt children.

Links:

Heroic Girl - ABC News
Child Porn Victim Masha Brings Her Story to Washington
Grace: Judges Too Lenient on Child Predators
Masha speaks to Congress - The Daily Bastardette
Masha Allan - Wikipedia
Masha's Testimony
Masha interview with Nancy Grace