“It should shake us up that on our continent, Christians are not safe.” - EP President Martin Schulz

BREITBART

EuroParliament Prez: Christians ‘Not Safe In Our Continent’

 

Reuters

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.3 Dec 20151,044

In a high-level meeting on religious persecution in Brussels, the President of the European Parliament (EP) said that Europe cannot afford to continue ignoring the fate of Christians, who are “clearly the most persecuted group” in the world.

In Wednesday’s meeting, EP President Martin Schulz said that the persecution of Christians is “undervalued” and does not receive enough attention, which has also meant that it “hasn’t been properly addressed.”

Schulz’s concerns were echoed by EP Vice President Antonio Tajani, who warned that Europe sometimes “falls into the temptation of thinking we can ignore this task,” referring to the protection Christians throughout the world who suffer persecution.

Speakers cited the work of Open Doors, a human rights organization that monitors the persecution of Christians, noting that 150 million Christians worldwide suffer torture, rape and arbitrary imprisonment. Christians in Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Nigeria are among those hardest hit.

The Open Doors report for 2015 found that “Islamic extremism is by far the most significant persecution engine” of Christians in the world today and that “40 of the 50 countries on the World Watch List are affected by this kind of persecution.”

Read More Here

Missouri townspeople shun sex abuse victim as a liar — even after ‘good man’ admits to raping her

Travis Gettys
02 Nov 2015 at 11:57 ET

 

 

 

 

Darren Paden was sentenced to 50 years in prison Friday after pleading guilty in August to two counts of first-degree statutory sodomy

 

 

A child sex abuse victim says she’s been denied housing after accusing a “good man” of molesting her for years — and Missouri prosecutors are mystified that so many community members are supporting the admitted sex offender. Darren Paden was sentenced to 50 year

s in prison Friday after pleading guilty in August to two counts of first-degree statutory sodomy — but friends, family members, church elders and community leaders begged a judge to go easy on him.
Prosecutors said the 52-year-old Paden sexually abused the girl up to 300 times over a decade, beginning before she was 5 years old. His 28-year-old son, Anthony Paden, was also charged with sex abuse, although his case remains pending.

But community members have turned their backs on the girl, who is now 18 years old and testified against her abuser in court, and rallied around Paden.

“There are certainly a few good people in this community who have offered support to this young victim,” said Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd. “It is shocking, however, that many continue to support a defendant whose guilt was never in doubt. If it takes a village to raise a child, what is a child to do when the village turns its back and supports a confessed child molester?”

Read More Here

The Islamic State Is Raping 8-Year-Olds. And the World Is Doing Nothing.

 Iraqi refugees in Syria Wikipedia.org

.

..........

 POLITICO

By Vian Dakhil

October 07, 2015

 

Last week I arrived back home to Iraqi Kurdistan, exhausted but proud of a small but real triumph over the Islamic State. Three women and two toddlers came back with me—five human beings just rescued from enslavement by ISIL. For over a year, they were abused, raped and traded fighter to fighter because of one reason: our Yazid religion. I am determined to save every last one of the more than 2,000 Yazidi women and girls still waiting to be freed.

They thought they were abandoned. Their ISIL captors told them that no one wanted them, in their shame and defilement, and that no one was looking for them. But I insist on reaching out to them through pleas on Arabic radio and TV. I give them my phone number, and tell them that we love them and we want them back. Some brave women hear these messages and contact us, and a rescue mission commences. I answer the phone every time, determined to do all that I can, but it is little, and it is not enough. I know there will always be another call, another Yazidi who is terrified and broken and in need of hope, as the world looks the other way.

One of the women, clutching her 2-year-old child, was so distraught. The child kept asking for her 7-year-old sister, who had been taken away from her mother and enrolled in a religious institution where she would be forced to convert to Islam. Her mother had had no choice but to escape without her, and she told me she feared the girl would be raped at the hands of the militants. We have evidence of the militants raping our girls as young as age 8.

For that brief time in August 2014, the United States launched airstrikes to halt the advance of ISIL after its troops took over a third of Iraq, saving the Yazidi people from total massacre by ISIL troops. But since then, we’ve been abandoned and forgotten by Washington and the rest of the international community. For every story of a girl who has been rescued, there’s another one about a girl who is still in captivity, where she is starved, raped, beaten and sold—often to “fellow” Iraqis. And 500,000 Yazidis, a full 90 percent of the indigenous Yazidi population, are in displaced persons’ camps, living in abject misery and isolation with less than minimal sustenance. We languish in these camps, live without income, and without food, medicine or even shelter durable enough to keep the rain out. As long as ISIL remains intent on wiping my people off the map; and as long as the Iraqi and Kurdish Regional governments continue to see Yazidis as less than second-class citizens, unworthy of significant aid and attention, these horrors will continue.

Read More Here

Isidro Garcia arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and rape after he allegedly abducted a 15-year-old girl a decade ago

L.A. Now 

Man arrested for allegedly kidnapping girl, holding her for 10 years

Richard Winton, Adolfo Flores
 

contact the reporters

Santa Ana police arrested a Bell Gardens man on suspicion of kidnapping and rape after he allegedly abducted a 15-year-old girl a decade ago and held her hostage, forcing her to marry him and have his child.
Isidro Garcia was arrested Tuesday after his alleged victim reached out to her sister on Facebook and revealed how she been held hostage in a relationship with the 41-year-old man and had given birth to his child during the decade she vanished.

Isidro Garcia was arrested Tuesday after his alleged victim reached out to her sister on Facebook. (Santa Ana Police Department)

Santa Ana police say the girl's mother reported her missing in August 2004. The mother told police her daughter went missing, along with her live-in boyfriend, Garcia, after a domestic violence incident.
Detectives say the mother suspected Garcia was sexually abusing her daughter.
The victim, now 25, revealed to authorities Tuesday how she was abducted in June 2004, when she was living with her mother and sisters in Santa Ana.

Read More Here

Torture committee dismisses Holy See's argument that its obligation to enforce UN treaty stops at boundaries of city state

The  Vatican  - View from Castel Sant'Angelo
By  :  Jorge Valenzuela A
wikimedia.org
.....

Vatican tries to draw line under clerical sex abuse scandals at UN hearing

• John Hooper in Rome
• theguardian.com, Monday 5 May 2014 10.46 EDT

The Vatican has been given another hostile interrogation by a United Nations committee over its record on clerical sex abuse.
One member after another of the committee against torture brushed aside the Holy See's argument that its obligation to enforce the UN convention against torture stopped at the boundaries of the world's smallest country, the Vatican City state. They demanded the pope's representative give answers to a long list of questions about the treatment of sex abuse claims against clergy throughout the world.
The Holy See, which long predates the city state, is a sovereign entity without territory. It is as the Holy See that the Catholic leadership maintains diplomatic relations and signs treaties such as the convention against torture.
But Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's UN ambassador in Geneva, told the committee: "The Holy See intends to focus exclusively on Vatican City state."
The American expert on the committee, Felice Gaer, made plain her disagreement. She said the Holy See had to "show us that, as a party to the convention, you have a system in place to prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment when it is acquiesced to by anyone under the effective control of the officials of the Holy See and the institutions that operate in the Vatican City state".

Read More and  Watch Video Here

.....

• Irish Times

Vatican faces tough questions at UN torture committee

Vatican to answer questions on past, present and future handling of clerical sex abuse

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, (R), Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the Office of the United Nations in Geneva, and Vincenzo Buonomo, (L), of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See prior to the UN torture committee hearing on the Vatican, at the headquarters of the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Palais Wilson, in Geneva, Switzerland. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA

Paddy Agnew

• Silvano Tomasi

Tue, May 6, 2014, 01:00

First published: Tue, May 6, 2014, 01:00

As expected, a Holy See delegation faced tough questioning at the UN’s Committee Against Torture in Geneva yesterday. For the second time in three months, the Vatican was appearing before a UN body to answer questions about its ratification of a UN treaty, especially with regard to is past, present and future handling of clerical sex abuse.

In his opening address to the committee, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s permanent representative at the UN in Geneva, argued that while the Holy See lent “its moral support and collaboration . . . to the elimination of torture”, it had signed the torture convention in 2002 “on behalf of the Vatican city state”.

No jurisdictionArchbishop Tomasi said he intended to “focus exclusively on the Vatican city state”, the 100 -acre statelet that surrounds the Basilica of St Peter’s.

In that sense, he claimed, the Holy See had “no jurisdiction over every member of the Catholic Church”. Rather, he said, persons who “live in a particular country are under the jurisdiction of the legitimate authorities of that country and are thus subject to the domestic law [of that country]”.

Inevitably, that assertion prompted a critical reaction from the UN committee, with US human rights activist Felice Gaer accusing Archbishop Tomasi of making an “alleged distinction” between the Holy See and the Vatican city state.

She questioned the Holy See’s apparent assumption that the torture convention applied only to the “four corners of Vatican City”, saying that as far as she could see, Vatican City was simply a “sub-division” of the Holy See.

Read More Here
.....

Related articles

• Vatican tries to draw line under clerical sex abuse scandals at UN hearing
• Vatican Poised for 2nd Grilling This Year on Abuse
• That's a familiar argument
• Vatican Envoy Questioned at U.N. Over Response to Abuse
• Vatican faces tough questions at UN torture committee

Gay Rights Activist Larry Brinkin Arrested On Child Porn Charges

yazakchattiest

 

Published on Jan 28, 2014

Larry Brinkin, who worked at the Human Rights Commission for the City of San Francisco for 22 years and was a prominent homosexual rights activist for more than 40 years, pleaded guilty to felony child pornography possession last week.

Brinkin is expected to serve six months in jail, five years of probation, and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life when he is sentenced on Mar. 5. But he likely will get to keep his city pension because possessing and viewing child porn apparently is not considered a crime of "moral turpitude" under San Francisco's retirement/pension rules.

According to police, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle and SF Weekly, Brinkin had photographic images of children between the ages of 1 and 3 who were being sodomized and forced to perform oral sex on adult men.

Also, in e-mails attributed to Brinkin using the account "Zack3737@aol.com," he praised interracial adult-child sex saying, in one message, "I loved especially the [N-word] 2 year old getting nailed. Hope you'll continue so I can see what the little blond bitch is going to get. White Power! White Supremacy! White D--- Rules!"

Brinkin, who is "married" to partner Wood Massi and has a son with two mothers, retired from the city's Human Rights Commission in 2010, when he was 64 years old. At the time and with the support of city official Bevan Dufty, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in honor of Brinkin's work over the years to combat discrimination, passed a resolution declaring the first seven days of February 2010 "Larry Brinkin Week."

While on the Human Rights Commission, Brinkin had worked as a compliance officer, responsible for helping to ensure non-discrimination against employees. He had been instrumental, back in 1982, in implementing San Francisco's Equal Benefits Ordinance, which required employers to provide equal coverage for "domestic partners." Further, Brinkin has been a long-time advocate for gay "marriage."

The archived pages of SF Pride say of Brinkin, "Larry Brinkin has been an activist in San Francisco for over 35 years, co-founding Bay Area Gay Liberation, the Lesbian/Gay Labor Alliance, and the Gay & Lesbian Alternative Dispute Resolution Service. He was a pioneer in the struggle for domestic partner benefits and currently is the manager of the LGBT&HIV Division of the SF Human Rights Commission. He played a major role in recent years in the struggle for transgender rights."

Brinkin was first arrested in the child pornography investigation in June 2012. According to the news reports, in early 2012 America Online (AOL) had contacted authorities after discovering e-mails and child pornographic images in one of the company's subscriber accounts.

The Los Angeles Police Department, then put in charge of the case, traced the IP address of the e-mail account Zack3737@aol.com to Larry Brinkin. Police then confirmed that Brinkin had paid for the e-mail service with his credit card.

Read more at:
CNS News: San Francisco's Gay Icon Larry Brinkin Guilty of Felony Child Porn Possession
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/micha...
San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. gay rights advocate arrested over child porn
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/S...
SF Weekly: Larry Brinkin, S.F. Gay Rights Icon, Arrested on Child Porn Charges
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2...

.....

Larry Brinkin, San Francisco gay rights icon, arrested on child porn charges: police 

Gay rights icon Larry Brinkin, 66, has been arrested on charges of child pornography, according to San Francisco police, for allegedly exchanging emails that contained images of children as young as a year old.

By Rheana Murray / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 1:11 PM

YouTube

Larry Brinkin, 66, a San Francisco gay rights icon, was charged on possession of child pornography Friday night.

Gay rights icon Larry Brinkin has been arrested on charges of child pornography, according to San Francisco police.
Brinkin, 66, best known for fighting for equal rights on behalf of the LGBT community, was booked into San Francisco County Jail on Friday night. He posted bail and was released Saturday, SF Weekly reports.
The San Francisco Police Department seized computers, videos, VHS tapes and a floppy disc from Brinkin and his husband’s home, according to a search warrant obtained by SF Weekly.
Police say Brinkin had exchanged emails that contained pornographic photographs involving children as young as 1-year-old being sodomized or performing oral sex on adult men, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The emails also contain graphic sexual and racist commentary, including, "I loved especially the n---er 2 year old getting nailed," as well as a rant about white supremacy.
The disturbing messages were traced to Brinkin’s IP address, and his name and credit card information are registered with the AOL account, identified as zack3737@aol.com, according to police.

Read More Here
.....

Former SF city employee pleads guilty to possession of child pornography

View Larger 

KTVU.com Staff

larry brinkin

KTVU and Wires

SAN FRANCISCO —

A former San Francisco Human Rights Commission employee pleaded guilty Tuesday to felony possession of child pornography.
Larry Brinkin, 67, agreed this morning to a plea deal with San Francisco prosecutors, who dropped a second charge of distributing child pornography.
Under the terms of the agreement, Brinkin will serve six months in county jail, six months of home detention and four years' probation.
He remains out of custody after posting $240,000 bail and will return to court for sentencing on March 5.

Read More Here
.....

Related articles

• Former SF Human Rights Commission Employee Guilty Of Child Porn Possession
• Kiddie Porn Does Not Count as "Moral Turpitude" to S.F. Govt.
• Beyond The Pale - In San Francisco Extreme Child Pornography Does Not Qualify As "Moral Turpitude"...
• San Francisco's Gay Icon Larry Brinkin Guilty of Felony Child Porn Possession
• Larry Brinkin, S.F. Gay Rights Activist, Pleads Guilty to Kiddie Porn Charges

Four school employees, including the superintendent and an assistant football coach, were indicted by a grand jury investigating a possible coverup in the Steubenville rape case.

Steubenville case: Four more charged, including superintendent, volunteer coach

  NBC News Video  00:07

"How do you hold kids accountable, if you don't hold the adults accountable," asks Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine during a press conference to discusses new developments in the special grand jury investigation into the Steubenville teen rape case.

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

The charges were announced Monday by the state's top prosecutor, who decried "blurred, stretched and distorted boundaries of right and wrong" by students and grown-ups alike.
"How do you hold kids accountable if you don’t hold the adults accountable?" Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine asked.
Superintendent Michael McVey, 50, was charged with tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice in the aftermath of the incident at the center of the case: the sexual assault of a drunken 16-year-old girl by two high school football players after a booze-fueled party in August 2012.
An assistant coach, Matthew Belardine, 26, was charged with allowing underage drinking, obstructing official business and making a false statement.
Two school employees, strength coach Seth Fluharty, 26, and elementary-school principal Lynnett Gorman, 40, were charged with failure to report child abuse.
The indictment did not contain details of what each person allegedly did.
“What you have is people who were not worried about a victim. They were worried about other things," DeWine said.
"People made bad choices and the grand jury said there are repercussions."
A small city of 19,000 about 40 miles from Pittsburgh, Steubenville and its high-school football team, Big Red, became the center of a firestorm last year after the rape allegations surfaced.
Though charges were brought against two players, activists questioned why more people weren't charged — including other students who sent photos, videos of texts about the assault, or adults who may have known about it but didn't report it.
After Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, were convicted of rape and sentenced to at least a year in juvenile prison in March, a grand jury was convened to determine if anyone else broke any laws.

Jason Cohn / Reuters file

Harding Stadium, home of the Steubenville High Big Red football team.

It met 18 times and heard from 123 witnesses, ultimately issuing six indictments.
Last month, it charged William Rhinaman, 53, the Steubenville schools' technology director, with tampering with evidence and obstructing justice. His 20-year-old daughter, Hannah, was charged with a theft unrelated to the rape case.


Read More Here

Related articles

• Four more indicted in Steubenville rape case
• Superintendent, 3 Others Indicted in Steubenville Rape Case
• Steubenville rape case: 'New developments' to be announced Monday
• 'New developments' to be announced in Steubenville, Ohio, rape case, Ohio Attorney General's office says - @cnnbrk
• School superintendent, 3 others charged in Steubenville rape case
• Four Adults Charged With Helping Cover Up The Steubenville Rape Case
• Boom: Four Steubenville School Officials Indicted in Teen Rape Case

Survey shows extent of sexual violence in region where 70% of men report facing no legal consequences

Nearly quarter of men in Asia-Pacific admit to committing rape

• Kate Hodal
• The Guardian, Monday 9 September 2013

Papua New Guinea recorded the heaviest prevalence of rape. Photograph: Rocky Roe/AFP/Getty Images

Nearly a quarter of men in the Asia-Pacific region have admitted to committing rape at least once in their life, according to a new survey (pdf), with more than half of those respondents claiming they raped for the first time while in their teens.
The study covering six countries – Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka – found that 10% of men admitted to raping at least once a woman who was not their partner, a figure that rose to nearly 25% when rape of a partner was included.
Nearly 75% of those who had committed rape said they did so because they felt sexually entitled; more than half said they did it for entertainment.
The UN-led study on men and violence collected data from more than 10,000 men and 3,000 women aged 18-49 between 2010 and 2013 in order to understand why men commit violence against women and what can be done to prevent it.
The findings are significant because the Asia-Pacific region is home to over half of the world's population, making the amount and range of information collected "unprecedented and ground-breaking", said Dr Emma Fulu of Partners for Prevention, the joint-UN programme that co-ordinated the study.
"This is really the first time we've had data on rape perpetration on this scale, not just in the region but in the world, and I think it probably suggests rape is more widespread than we had thought, and the perpetration of rape starts earlier than people perhaps thought, which really highlights the need to start working with younger boys and girls to stop the violence," she said.


Read More Here

Related articles

• One in four men in Asia-Pacific region admit to committing rape
• UN survey reveals nearly a quarter of men in Asia-Pacific admit to committing rape
• In Some Asia-Pacific Nations, 1 in 10 Men Have Committed Rape
• 23% of men 'admit to rape in Asia'
• Nearly a quarter of men admit to rape in Asia-Pacific countries

Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro dead in prison after hanging himself in his cell

BREAKING NEWS:

• Ariel Castro found hanging in his prison cell at 9.20pm Tuesday

• He was checked on every 30 minutes by guards

• Castro was being held in isolation, in protective custody away from the general prison population

• Served just one month of his prison sentence of life, plus 1,000 years

• Pleaded guilty last month to kidnapping, raping, beating and torturing Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight

By Michael Zennie
PUBLISHED: 23:23 EST, 3 September 2013 | UPDATED: 00:30 EST, 4 September 2013

Ariel Castro, the Cleveland kidnapper who held three women against their will for a decade, is dead after hanging himself in his prison cell Tuesday night.
Castro, 53, was found about 9.20pm at Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio. He had served only one month of his prison term, which sent him away for life, plus 1,000 years.
Castro was being housed alone in an isolation unit for his protection, prison officials said.
Prison regulations dictate that guards had to check on him every 30 minutes. Officials say he hanged himself during a break between inspections.

Dead: Ariel Castro hanged himself in his prison cell just one month after being sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison

Lonely death: This is an isolation cell at Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, like the one where Castro hanged himself Tuesday

Castro made international headlines when Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were freed from his Cleveland house after ten years of captivity under unimaginable conditions. 
When prison guards found Castro hanging in his cell Tuesday, they immediately began trying to resuscitate him.
He was taken to Ohio State University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour and a half later - shortly before 11pm.
A spokeswoman for the the Ohio Department of Corrections said the agency will make a full investigation of Castro's suicide to determine whether regulations were followed and if anything could have been done to prevent his death.

Read More Here

Related articles

• Convicted Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro found dead in his prison cell
• Convicted Kidnapper Ariel Castro Found Dead In Jail Cell
• Convicted Ohio kidnapper Ariel Castro found dead in jail cell

The demolition of the Cleveland house of horror comes less than a week after Castro was sentenced to life in prison plus 1,000 years.

Ariel Castro's house of horror leveled in Cleveland

Neighbors, victims and family clapped and cheered on the street as the heavy equipment clawed away at the roof and walls of Ariel Castro's house where he kept three women captive for more than a decade.

Jennifer Lindgren and Doug Stanglin ,

USA TODAY 11:03 a.m. EDT

August 7, 2013

One of his victims brought yellow balloons in memory of other missing children.

(Photo: Tony Dejak AP)

CLEVELAND — Demolition crews leveled Ariel Castro's former house of horror Wednesday not long after one of three young women held captive there for 11 years brought a bundle of yellow balloons in memory of other missing children.
Cheers erupted on Seymour Avenue as the heavy equipment clawed away part of the roof and walls of the rundown house where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were rescued after years of living in chains.
Crews reduced the two-story house to rubble in a little more than an hour. The demolition was carried live online and also drew crowds of neighbors and onlookers.
Castro, 53, pleaded guilty last month to 937 charges including rape, kidnapping and aggravated murder charges in connection with the abduction of the three young women, who were rescued May 6.

Michelle Knight, third from the left, holds yellow balloons outside the home of Ariel Castro on Wednesday only minutes before crew began to destroy the structure in which she was held for 11 years.(Photo: Angelo Merendino Getty Images)

Knight, who also spoke at Castro's sentencing in a moving condemnation of his crimes, made a brief statement and asked God to grant strength to those still missing and told their families to have hope. She says the yellow balloons represented those still out there waiting to be found.

 Read More Here

Related articles

• Ariel Castro's house razed to the ground to ward off 'murderabilia' collectors
• Ariel Castro House Demolished: Michelle Knight Hands Out Yellow Balloons to Honor Missing People
• Ariel Castro house demolished [VIDEO]: Watch house of horrors on 2207 Seymore Avenue in Cleveland bulldozed to the ground
• Cleveland Kidnapper Ariel Castro's 'House of Horrors' Demolished - ABC News
• Ohio kidnap victim watches as Ariel Castro's house of horror is torn down
• Ariel Castro's house of horrors destroyed by demolition crews
• 'Strength personified': Michelle Knight releases balloons as Castro's house of horrors is leveled [video, pics]
• Photos: Ariel Castro's house of horror demolished
• Photos: Ariel Castro's house of horror demolished