Category: International

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

Malaysia Charges Cartoonist With Sedition For Criticizing Its Courts

125px-Flag_of_Malaysia.svgPrisonCellWe have yet another attack on free speech and the free press from one of our allies. Malaysian cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Alhaque, better known as Zunar, has been hit with nine counts of sedition for tweets critical of the country’s judiciary. It is an outrageous prosecution brought under a law that defines sedition as any comment that promotes hatred toward the government. Zunar previously defended his art against claims that it is defamatory. Zunar faces up to 43 years in jail if found guilty on all nine charges.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

Survivors of Paris Attack Sue Media For Revealing Their Hiding Place In Live Coverage

"A Revolutionary Committee during the Terror." An engraving of 1798 with a negative portrayal of policing functions during the Terror carried out by radicalized sans-culottes in Paris.There is an interesting lawsuit in France by six survivors of the January attack by Islamic extremist Amedy Coulibaly at the Hyper Casher Jewish supermarket in Paris. The six people were mortified after learning that French media broadcasted their hiding location in a refrigerator while Coulibaly was looking for hostages and threatening to kill them all.

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Academia, Environment, International, Politics, Science

Study: Global Deaths Due To Air Pollution Are Substantially Higher Than Previously Estimated

220px-AlfedPalmersmokestacksA new study has raised the disturbing question of whether we are substantially under-estiminating the annual death toll from air pollution, which currently stands at around 3.4 million a year. The reason is the failure to measure the lethality of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), emitted during fossil fuel burning.

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Criminal law, Free Speech, International

Second Blogger Murder In Broad Daylight By Islamic Extremists in Bangladesh

Washiqur_Rahman_MishuWe recently discussed the savage murder of Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, in Bangladesh by Islamic extremists. Now, another blogger who wrote about Islamic extremism has been hacked to death. Washiqur Rahman Mishu, 27, was hacked and stabbed to by the Islamists in broad day light in Tejgaon Industrial area of Dhaka.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, International

Alabama Officer Fired Over Abusive Takedown Of Indian National Is Hit With Federal Civil Rights Charges

54de18903b380.imageWe previously discussed the terrible case of Sureshbhai Patel who was seriously injured after former Madison (Alabama) police officer Eric Sloan Parker slammed him face first into the ground during a confrontation. Parker is now charged on the state level and facing a civil lawsuit. Now he has been charged with violating Patel’s civil rights. As we have discussed before, the question is whether such federal charges are necessary or warranted. Obviously, while based on the same conduct as the state charges, the charges are different. On the state level, it is assault while on the federal level it is the denial of federal rights. The Supreme Court has rejected double jeopardy attacks on such back-to-back charges, but these cases still raise the same concerns of multiplication of charges.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, International, Justice, Media, Politics

Italian High Court Acquits Amanda Knox And Raffaele Sollecito

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Amanda Knox
Amanda Knox

In what hopefully will become the conclusion of an oppressive years long ordeal, Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, overturned the murder convictions against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

The news came as somewhat a surprise considering the zeal at which the prosecution fought to ensure the defendants be imprisoned for over two decades. The subsequent court drama and media circuses made it seem an almost foregone conclusion her fate would ultimately rest upon an extradition hearing within the purview of American courts.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Military, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Court Sentences Man To 13 Years For Removing Turkish Flag

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Flag of TurkeyIn an injustice to both the liberty of a Kurdish man and free speech in general a court in Turkey handed down thirteen year sentence to a defendant accused of removing a Turkish flag at a military base near Diyarbakir, Turkey. The disproportionate sentence followed an outraged Recep Erdogan who declared after the act, “[w]e don’t care if he is a child. Even if a child dares to take down our sacred flag both him and those who send him there will pay a price.”

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Bizarre, International, Society, Torts

Co-Pilot Accused Of Intentionally Locking Out Pilot And Crashing Germanwings Flight 9525

BN-HP395_0326lu_H_20150326103252A French prosecutor has issued a statement that the co-pilot of Germanwings 9525, Andreas Lubitz, 28, locked out the pilot of the plane and then intentionally crashed the plane in the French Alps. The conclusion adds a new horrific detail to an already horrific crash. It was not an accident according to a review of the record from the black box found at the crash site.

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Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia: Ban All Christian Sites

200px-Coat_of_arms_of_Saudi_Arabia.svgSheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, who serves as the grand mufti of Sifaudi Arabia, is calling for Kuwait to follow the lead of Saudi Arabia and ban the construction of any Christian religious site. While Islamic leaders like the Grand Mufti are outraged with any slight or restriction of their religion, they deny the most fundamental rights of free exercise to other religions in the name of Islam. This is nothing new for the Saudi cleric and his colleagues. He previously called for all churches to be destroyed in 2012. It is not clear if this is a repeat of his announcement a few years ago or a recycling of the earlier story. However, it is a shocking position from one of the highest Islamic clerics in the world and adds an insight into the recent religious violence in places like Syria and Iraq.

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International, Justice, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Woman Beaten To Death And Set Alight In Afghanistan Was Wrongly Accused

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Farkhunda
Farkhunda

If it was possible to add another injustice levied against Farkhunda, a woman who suffered a brutal murder at the hands of a mob in Afghanistan that insisted she burned a Koran, authorities publicly announced she was in fact innocent of these claims.

In response to this outrage, a day of national morning occurred during her funeral and burial. Various leaders including Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned her murder as a heinous attack. Reports of police standing nearby and indifferent to the incident lead the president to call for fundamental reforms in the nation’s police forces.

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Free Speech, International, Media, Politics

Glenn Greenwald: U.S. Threatened Germany Over Snowden Asylum

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

220px-Glenn_greenwald_portrait
Glenn Greenwald

During a conference held to award Journalist Glenn Greenwald the Siebenpfeiffer Prize for Journalism, Greenwald reported a conversation in which German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. In this the Vice Chancellor commented to him that the United States threatened Germany with withholding vital intelligence of terrorist activity if the nation granted asylum to Edward Snowden or otherwise allowed him to travel to Germany.

The event shows the extreme measures the Administration is willing to take regarding whistleblowers and others labeled as threats.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, International, Society

The Ultimate Product Placement: Mexico Reportedly Gives MGM and Sony $20 Million In Tax Breaks To Clean Up Its Image In New Bond Film

Mara_Salvatrucha_MS13Spectre_posterMexico appears to have found a solution to the aversion of tourists and businesses in going to the coutnry with rising drug-based violence, kidnappings, and corruption: they are bribing movie moguls to scrub the image of the country in major movies. MGM and Sony reportedly ordered changes to the new James Bond movie to give positive views of Mexico and drop the image of a Mexican villain. Now that is product placement.

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Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Media, Religion, Society

Afghan Mob Burns Woman Alive For Burning A Copy Of The Koran in Kabul [UPDATED]

220px-Mosque_of_the_King_of_Two_SwordsWe have another story of a Muslim mob murdering a person for offending Islam. A woman named Farkhunda, 32, in Kabul had reportedly burned a copy of the Koran inside a riverside shrine. She was then set upon by a huge mob that burned her alive and then threw her into the Kabul river. This was deemed the moral response to an immoral act by the crowd. [Update: It turns out that the accusations against Farkhunda may be untrue and that she was actually defending what she viewed as the degrading act of selling amulets in a mosque when she was attacked]

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

Penn State Professor Arrested After Incident On Airplane

17282445-mmmain20150318_inq_rrxpsu18-aPennsylvania State University Associate Professor Karen Bettez Halnon, 52, took her students on a memorable field trip this month to Nicaragua that ended in witnessing her reported meltdown and arrest on an American Airlines flight that landed in Miami. In addition to reportedly raving about how the United States was setting up Venezuela for “military aggression,” she also lit up a cigarette to reportedly show symbolize the United States as a “smoking gun.” She was charged with disorderly-conduct and breach-of-peace. She has accused the FBI and airport security of abusing her after her arrest. Her two research assistants reportedly made it home safely.

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