Category: International

Free Speech, International, Politics, Society

Iranian Council Disqualifies Virtually All Reformers From Running For Office

200px-Voter_Cast_his_vote_in_ballot_box-_Iranian_presidential_election,_2013_in_Sarakh_3Ali_Khamenei,Iran’s idea of an election has always been something of a curiosity. No more so than this week. The Guardian Council, an unelected group composed of Muslim clerics and hardliners, disqualified all but 30 of the 3,000 reform candidates seeking to appear on ballots for the parliamentary elections. Six of the 12 members of the Council are clerics selected by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International

Leading Turkish Opposition Figure Put Under Investigation After Defending Dozens of Arrested Academics Who Signed Peace Petition

220px-Recep_Tayyip_ErdoganWe recently discussed the latest authoritarian move by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in rounding up dozens of academics who signed a peace petition. The move was denounced throughout the world, but Erdogan is clearly unmoved. Now, those who objected to the crackdown and loss of the freedom of speech are themselves being targeted by the government. Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu is facing arrest after saying that “Academics who express their opinions have been detained one by one on instructions given by a so-called dictator.” Prosecutors launched an investigation into Kilicdaroglu’s comments on charges of “openly insulting the president.”

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Bizarre, International, Religion, Society

Fifteen Year Old Boy Mistakenly Raises Hand In Mosque and Is Accused of Blasphemy But Then Praised After He Cuts Off His Own Hand

UnknownThere is a truly horrific story out of Pakistan that reveals the sheer insanity that can be instilled in an entire community through religious orthodoxy. News reports indicate that Mohammad Anwar, 15, cut off his own hand after being told that he had committed blasphemy by failing to pray enough. His act was reportedly celebrated by the community as a wonderful testament to his Islamic faith.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Turkey Arrests Dozens of Academics Who Signed Peace Petition As Enemies of the State

220px-Recep_Tayyip_ErdoganTurkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian rule is again evident this week with the rounding up of dozens of professors for simply signing a petition denouncing military operations against Kurds in the south-east of the country. The signatories of the petition included famous linguist Noam Chomsky and the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. Erdoğan responded angrily to the letter, which was denounced as “terror propaganda” and he called on the judiciary to act against their alleged treachery. Supporters of Erdoğan and nationalist students have been intimidating academics by marking their doors and threatening professors who signed the petition calling for peace.

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Bizarre, International, Society

Unfriending Decision: Germany’s Highest Court Rules “Friend Finder” To Be An Unlawful Marketing Practice

200px-Facebook.svggavel2There is an interesting ruling out of Germany where the country’s highest court declared Facebook’s “friend finder” feature to be unlawful as a deceptive marketing practice. The case was filed by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV).

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Lawyering

China Arrests Human Rights Lawyers As State Media Mocks Feminist For “Blabbering About The Rule of Law and Human Rights”

130px-Mao_Zedong_portraitChina has conducted another round up of human rights lawyers, including Wang Yu, the country’s most prominent woman human rights lawyer. Adding an Orwellian element to this latest outrage was China’s state media which accused Wang last year of “blabbering about the rule of law and human rights.” Wang and her colleagues have long been symbols of courage in the face of authoritarian rule, including prior detentions designed to scare them into silence.

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Bizarre, Free Speech, International

Indian Comedian Arrested For Mimicking Controversial Guru

GuruJi_addressing_a_spiritual_congregationWe have seen in recent years not only a rollback on free speech, even in the West, but the targeting of comedians who offend different groups or faiths. The latest such case is found in India where police arrested Kiku Sharda, 40, for mimicking controversial spiritual guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh (left). Singh, known as the “guru in bling” is widely ridiculed but a single complaint still led to the arrest of Sharda.

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Bizarre, International, Military, Politics, Society

Afghan Positions Being Overrun By Taliban Due To Nonexistent “Ghost Soldiers” Used To Funnel Money To Corrupt Afghan Officials

200px-Army_of_the_deadAs the Taliban probes the strength of Afghan forces, they are finding it an easier task than anticipated with a sizable number of the Afghan force constituted of “ghost soldiers.” As much as half of the soldiers in frontline positions are missing. We previously discussed the same problem of “ghost soldiers” in Iraq who are paid soldiers but only exist on paper as part of the widespread corruption of that country. The Taliban are finding forward positions with only half of the troops claimed on paper. Something tells me that these same Afghan officers and officials will claim that, while the real soldiers perished at their under-manned outposts, their “ghost soldiers” somehow miraculously survived and will continue to fight . . . and draw pay.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, International, Religion

ISIS Fighter Reportedly Executes His Own Mother After She Encouraged Him To Flee With Her

Islamic_State_(IS)_insurgents,_Anbar_Province,_IraqJust when you thought that ISIS could not get more twisted in its perverted use of Islam to excuse rape and murder, it does. The BBC and other media outlets are airing a report that an Islamic State militant, Ali Saqr, 21, carried out a public “execution” of his own mother, Lena al-Qasem, 45, after she asked him to leave the group. The reported execution occurred in Raqqa, according to some activists. ISIS has also announced the execution of the first female journalist for reporting from ISIS territory.

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Courts, International, Justice, Religion, Society

Jordanian Christian Men Who Convert To Islam Gain Custody And Inheritance Advantages In Divorce Cases

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Jordan flagAs an example of the perils brought forth in countries having two legal systems, Christian men who intend to divorce their Christian spouse in Jordan receive significant leverage over their wives who remain within their faith.

Under Article 172 of Jordan’s personal status law, a Muslim man automatically receives custody of children aged seven and above when divorcing a Christian woman. This statutory provision provides a husband an attractive advantage in conversion to gain custody where he otherwise could receive an unfavorable determination based upon mitigating factors, such as showing the interests of the children might be better served if they remained within the custody of their mother.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

Germany Cracks Down On Anti-Immigration Speech

Freedom_of_Speech220px-Angela_Merkel_(2008)The recent sexual assault in Cologne of women on New Year’s Eve has shocked the nation.  As many as 1000 men, allegedly set upon women and made them run a gauntlet as they were grabbed, their clothes ripped, and their bodies groped.  Police sources and witnesses have said that many were refugees — triggering renewed objections over a spate of rapes and assaults of women in the country attributed to recent immigrants.  To make matters worse for the government, newspapers are reporting that one man told police “I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me.”  The result has been a rising tide of criticism of Merkel for her open-door policy. Yet, that criticism may now be muted by a move by the government to crackdown on anti-immigration comments as a form of “hate speech.”  As we discussed today with the effort to ban Donald Trump, free speech is being rolled back in Europe under hate crime and anti-discrimination laws as an alarming rate. It is particularly worrisome when the government is under attack on an issue like immigration and responds by prosecuting people for such criticism. News reports indicate that 18 of the 31 known suspects from Cologne were asylum seekers, including “nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, an Iraqi, a Serbian, an American and two German nationals.
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Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics

Parliament To Debate Barring Donald Trump From Entry Into The United Kingdom

495px-Donald_Trump_by_Gage_Skidmore220px-Houses.of.parliament.overall.arpWe have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). England is now a tragic example of how speech regulation and criminalization becomes insatiable — producing a down spiral as more and more speech is found intolerable or criminal. The most recent example is the call to ban Donald Trump from entry into the United Kingdom as someone guilty of hate speech. While I have criticized Trump’s statements about barring Muslims from entering the country, he is entitled to voice his views on immigration and participate in a debate about how we are going to handle both immigration and national security concerns. The chilling thing about this debate in Parliament is not that it will succeed in barring Trump but that it would not be in any way out of order with prior content-based sanctions.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, International, Politics, Religion, Society

“Safety Must Be First”: Israeli-Arab and Palestinian Forced Off Flight To Tel Aviv Due To Objections From Israeli Passengers

Boeing_737-33A,_Aegean_Airlines_AN0387722There appears another profiling incident on an airline after an Israeli-Arab and a Palestinian were forced off an Aegean Airlines flight from Athens to Tel Aviv. There was no reason given for the objections to flying with the two men other than their being Muslim or Arab. It is extraordinary that these men would have to deplane rather than those objecting take another flight but the airline insisted “safety must be first.”
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Academia, Bizarre, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Israel Bars Book From Schools Due To Its Discussion Of “Intimate Relations Between Jews and non-Jews”

RNS-BOOK-ISRAELWe recently discussed the concern over the criminalization of speech in Israel. Now there is an added concern after Israel’s Education Ministry disqualified Dorit Rabinyan’s award winning “Gader Haya” (literally “Hedgegrow,” but known in English as “Borderline”)from being used in high schools. The reason? The novel describes a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man. The Education Ministry decided that the novel threatened “the identity and the heritage of students in every sector,” and the belief that “intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews threatens the separate identity.”

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Bizarre, International, Society, Torts

“Goodbye Phillipines”: Drunken Man Dies After Hugging Explosive Just Before Detonation

180px-San_Diego_FireworksNew Year’s Eve brought in the New Year with the usual array of injuries from the combination of excessive drinking, crowds, and other factors. Perhaps the most bizarre and ironic was the death of a Filipino man who decided to hug a giant firecracker appropriately named “Goodbye Philippines” just before it exploded. It took the man with it.

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