Prominent Saudi cleric Salman Al-Odeh is reportedly shown in this video not just questioning the scope of the Holocaust but repeating the ancient anti-Semitic “blood libel” claim that Jews drink the blood of children. This story is based on a translation supplied by a couple of sites and cannot be verified by this blog. Perhaps one of our readers can address its accuracy.
Category: International
Ecuador granted asylum to Julian Assange today, an act that will further escalate the conflict between Britain and Ecuador. As I discussed on BBC last night, there are some common legal misunderstandings about the status of an embassy, but as a practical matter Assange should be beyond the reach of the English. While the government has threatened to strip the embassy of diplomatic status and grad Assange, it is in my view an empty threat. However, Assange is not likely to see Ecuador any time soon since he can be arrested trying to leave the country.
Continue reading “Assange Granted Asylum As Britain Threatens A Raid On Ecuadoran Embassy”
For those looking for proof of a divine Being, you might want to look this week in Budapest. The star of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi, 30, has been catapulted to national fame through anti-Semitic attacks and charging that Jews have been desecrating national symbols. He has particularly railed against the hidden influence of Jews in government — a message that resonated with a fraction of the electorate in Hungary. Szegedi is a founding member of the Hungarian Guard, which wears black uniforms and striped flags that closely resemble the pro-Nazi party that governed Hungary at the end of World War II and killed thousands of Jews. Szegedi’s career, however, came crashing down when it was learned that, under Jewish law, Szegedi is . . . you guessed it . . . Jewish.
Continue reading “Oy Vey: Anti-Semitic Hungarian Politician Discovers His Jewish Roots And Becomes Pariah In Far-Right Party”
It appears that ministers in Saudi Arabia have been watching Federico Fellini’s City of Women. The Saudi government has resolved the conflict of having women in the workforce but not allowing them to intermingle with men. No, they have not granted equal rights. They are building them their own city.
Continue reading “City of Women: Saudi Arabia Turns To Fellini To Deal With Female Unemployment”
We have been following anti-blasphemy laws around the world, including the increase in prosecutions in the West and the support of the Obama Administration for the prosecution of some anti-religious speech under the controversial Brandenburg standard. Now, journalist named Sofiene Chourabi has been arrested for simply criticizing a proposed new blasphemy law in Tunisia, which he rightfully condemned as a threat to free speech. We previously discussed the case. Chourabi was a leading voice in opposition to the prior ruler — part of the country’s “Arab Spring” movement. However, that government has been replaced, like so many other such countries, with an Islamic government that proceeded to crackdown on free speech and religious freedom.
Continue reading “Critic of Proposed Anti-Blasphemy Law In Tunisia Arrested”
Tang Hui (a pseudonym) is a mother who attracted international support after she was arrested by Chinese authorities for protesting the lack of action after her 11-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and forced into prostitution in 2006. Her story is horrific but not unique. The mother reported the kidnapping to police who did nothing even after she discovered her daughter at a strip club. She took her home and continued to protest the failure to punish her rapists who were still walking the streets. The authorities cracked down in response: the mother was convicted and sent to a prison camp.
There is an interesting story below about airlines that force men to switch seats when they are seated next to an unaccompanied child out of fear that they could be child molesters. A firefighter recounts how he was forced to move on a Virgin Australia flight because there was a child next to him. Qantas has actually defended the discriminatory policy.
Continue reading “Qantas Defends Policy To Bar Males From Sitting Next To Unaccompanied Minors”
Here is my column today in USA Today calling on the Olympic committee to consider an overhaul of Olympic rules to update procedures and remove archaic and discriminatory rules. While some may treat this as a call for a new Olympic legal team, it is merely an effort to get the Olympic to guarantee greater fairness with a systemic review of the rules for various sports. What bothers me is to see avoidable mistakes treated like just part of the games, even though they do great injustice to athletes who sacrificed so much to get to these cameras.
Submitted by: Michael Spindell, guest blogger
“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes – not that you won or lost –
But how you played the Game.”
by Grantland Rice
How many of us grew up with the paraphrase of these words ringing in our ears as we participated in all of the competitions that humans partake in. These sentiments represented the epitome of humans engaging in fair contests, the object of which was defining dominance in a particular field and/or activity. We were all supposed to be “fair”, “play by the rules”, honor our opponents and most of all treat them with respect. Much of this was first defined in Western Culture by the Code of Chivalry which not only defined how men hacked each other to death on the battlefield, but also how they were to treat the “fairer” (weaker) sex. As the merchant class rose and nobility declined, Chivalry was subsumed in Western Culture by the notion of “fair play”. That all of these concepts have been but hypocritical touchstones meant to add the veneer of human nobility, to human competition, is rarely admitted by those who promote competition for financial and/or political gain.
Thoughts of this came to me as I watched the Olympics this year, listening to the portentous palaver of the announcers, discussing the contests and the purported values behind them. Yes I felt tears of patriotic pride as Gabby Douglas won the gymnastics Gold Medal, but I also saw the pain on the face of Viktoria Komova, who “only” won the Silver Medal. Implicit was that the Russian gymnast had failed in her quest and that she would forever be marked by this failure. This is the hypocritical dichotomy that is pursued in all avenues of competitive human endeavor when reported upon by the media.
Humanity reached the top of the “food chain” by defeating the competition over eons of strife with other fierce predators. While there are still valid arguments on each side of the question as to how human society developed, whether in a spirit of cooperation, or as a rigid imposition of the will of the “leader”, we cannot question that we attained our status because of our predatory talents. Once the “order” of society was imposed humanity began to learn to sublimate battles to the death for proof of supremacy, into “contests” of talent. We learned to sort out our “hierarchy” through these contests and indeed they have developed into a wide range of competitions that most of us use to determine our places in the world. This is not a controversial idea, but even so I would like to take a step back from it and look at the obvious background of human competition that is missed as we “crown” our champions and pity those who could not measure up. The Olympic Movement is a very problematic one. I could go into its mixed history of bigotry, commercialism, deception and tragedy, but that is perhaps for another time. Continue reading “How You Play the Game”
Since 2008, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo has been seeking the arrest of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir for his alleged involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since 2003 in Darfur. He might want to pop in on the United Nations Human Rights Council — Al-Bashir is about to be one of its members.
Continue reading “Genocidal Sudanese Warlord To Join U.N. Human Rights Council”
This Olympics has seen a number of clearly bad calls by referees or judges. Some sports like gymnastics allows judges to review videotapes in resolving a challenge such as was the case where the American team successfully challenged the awarding of the bronze medal to the Russian female gymnast on the balance beam. (I loved watching U.S. national team coordinator Martha Karolyi, her husband, Bela, shouting demands for a challenge from the stands to ensure a review in favor of U.S. gymnast Aly Raisman. I have previously admitted to watching solely for the legal challenges). I was struck, therefore, to learn that they do not use instant replay in volleyball — one of my favorite sports to watch at the Olympics. This arose when the Chinese judge made an erroneous call in favor of the American men’s team against the Italians. The Italians were understandably upset since the instant replay clearly showed the American ball falling outside the line (though I was disappointed, as an Italian, to hear that the team is infamous for badmouthing referees). Yet, despite the instant and clear evidence of a bad call, the decision stood.
Continue reading “Question of the Day: Why Do Certain Olympic Sports Resist Instant Replay?”
It appears the fight over Lebensraum is now being waged over liquor store shelf space. An American couple has triggered a free speech controversy in Italy after complaining about the sale of wine with the image of Hitler on the label or other labels for “Mein Kampf” wine or wine with the motto “Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer” (one people, one empire, one Fuhrer). Michael Hirsch, a lawyer from Philadelphia, complained about the sale of such items. In Italy, prosecutors are looking into the matter for possible criminal charges. The question is whether the producer should have a right to supply such bottles and customers should have the right to buy such bottles.
The Vatican has taken the extraordinary measure of rejecting Bulgaria’s ambassador due to a prior book in which he depicted gay sex. Kiril Marichkov is a 39-year-old lawyer with two degrees, married to an Italian woman, and speaks five languages. He is also the grandson and namesake of the man appointed Bulgaria’s first ambassador to the Vatican after the collapse of communism in 1990. However, none of that matters to the Vatican which is upset with some of the scenes in his successful novel, Clandestination.
Continue reading “Vatican Rejects Bulgarian Ambassador Due To Prior Book Depicting Gay Sex”
Various news organizations have been reporting an exodus of the superrich from France — often buying homes in England or surrounding countries to avoid the expected 75 percent tax rate proposed by the Socialist government of President François Hollande. While the rate would apply only to those making one million euros a year or more, I view it as a mistake. I admit that I tend to have great reservations about heavy tax hikes during economic crisis. We have debated the value and potential harm of such hikes on this blog. However, a 75% rate is in my view insane. As rational actors, top earners are likely to simply leave the country as they are doing. Hollande came into office on a wave of sentiment to soak “Les riches” and Hollande himself proclaimed “I don’t like the rich.” It is a bit too Robespierrean for my tastes as an economic policy.
Continue reading “Off With Their Riches: France Prepares A 75% Tax Rate For Top Earners”
It appears that after years to clearly cultivating a cult of personality with action-hero photo ops and staged acts, Putin is still uncomfortable with kisses from his subjects . . . well at least on the hand. Putin seemed truly alarmed when a Russian Orthodox priest tried to kiss his hand while visiting a 14th century monastery on Russia’s northern Valaam Island. It was a particularly telling moment after Putin created an alliance with the Church to support his authoritarian government. Putin has particularly pleased the Church leaders after his government continued a widely condemned prosecution of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot after they carried out a brief demonstration in a church.
Continue reading “Not On The First Date: Putin Recoils As Russian Priest Seeks To Kiss His Hand”