Free Republic

Nicholas Winton rescued hundreds of young Jews from the Nazis and is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. We meet some of the children he savedThe birthday party will be modest and understated, in keeping with the man. Sir Nicholas Winton is 104 tomorrow and naturally some of his children will be there to wish him well. Not only his blood offspring but those known as Winton’s Children – the ones he saved from near-certain death three-quarters of a century ago. Nicholas – Nicky – Winton hates to be thought of as a hero, hates being compared with Oskar...

FULL TITLE: Child rapists taken off Sex Offenders' Register in secret... and police say it's to protect their human rights Police have secretly removed dozens of convicted sex offenders, including paedophiles and rapists, from the Sex Offenders’ Register, the Mail can reveal. Following a human rights ruling, the law was changed last year to allow sex attackers to claim they no longer posed a threat and apply to be taken off the register. Since then, 43 applications have been approved behind closed doors, at the rate of one every five days. About half of those who apply have been successful...

Vladimir Putin is more than a year into his third term as president of Russia, and he is likely to dominate the country's next decade as he dominated the last—just as Joseph Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev dominated their own times in the Kremlin. Like Putin or loathe him, he embodies an era. But centuries from now, the history books will barely remember the human rights abuses or oil pipelines in today's coverage of Russia. Mr. Putin will be remembered for one thing only: missing the chance to save his nation from a lingering decline. The United Nations predicts that, by...

As Biden speaks at event named for Old Hickory tonight, more appalling stories show party should dump him as icon Spring means that appeals for money are bursting forth from both major political parties. It also means Democratic officials in states and counties around the country are busy getting people out to their major fundraiser, the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. And theyÂ’re bringing in the big guns: Vice President Joe Biden will keynote the South Carolina DemocratsÂ’ dinner tonight.But after an election in which Democrats rode a wave of minority support to keep the White House and Senate, party activists should...

"Being Canadian, I would not expect much interference from the U.N. in my country. We are a proud multicultural First-world nation. We believe in human rights and liberty. We certainly cannot be compared to such horrific nations as, say, North Korea or Iran on matters of human rights. Yet here we are."

The kidnapping of the two Syrian Orthodox archbishops in Syria is an act of retaliation on the part of terrorist Chechen jihadists who are fighting with anti-Assad rebels over the killing of one of two Chechens responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings and the arrest of the other, by U.S. police forces, Turkish newspaper Sabah reported this morning. The two prelates, the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo, Yohanna Ibrabhim and the Greek Orthodox bishop Boulos Yaziji were taken hostage on Monday, 30 kilometres from the Turkish border, as they were returning by car to Aleppo. Their driver was killed by...

China slammed the human rights record of the United States in response to Washington’s report on rights around the world, saying that U.S. military operations have infringed on rights abroad and that political donations at home have thwarted the country’s democracy. The report released Sunday in China—which defines human rights primarily in terms of improving living conditions for its 1.3 billion people—also cited gun violence in the U.S. among its examples of human rights violations, saying it was a serious threat to the lives and safety of America’s citizens. … “American citizens do not enjoy a genuinely equal right to...

Inmates at the Masanjia labour camp for women. Photo: AP A rarely seen report by a Chinese monthly has exposed some of the dark practices of a Liaoning labour camp including torture and inhuman treatment of female prisoners at a time when the government has vowed to reform the country’s notorious, decades-old labour camp system. The claims, reported by Lens, part of the leading SEEC Media Group, are based on accounts of provincial procurators, former camp officials and former and current prisoners. Masanjia female labour camp, near Shenyang, houses nearly all the female forced-labour prisoners in Liaoning province and is...

(CNSNews.com) – Reports about a fatwa urging young girls to travel to Syria to provide sexual services for jihadist rebels are causing a stir in Tunisia, while also drawing attention to the Islamic concept – little-known in the West and controversial among Muslims themselves – of “temporary marriage.” Girls as young as 14 are counted as eligible for the “sexual jihad,” and around a dozen young Tunisians are believed to have taken up the call, attributed to an influential Saudi scholar, Sheikh Mohamed al-Arifi. The pan-Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper reported this week that a video circulating on social media sites in...

Fusion center director: We don’t spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans Law enforcement intelligence-processing fusion centers have long come under attack for spying on Americans. The Arkansas director wanted to clarify the truth: centers only spies on some Americans – those who appear to be a threat to the government. In trying to clear up the ‘misconceptions’ about the conduct of fusion centers, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis simply confirmed Americans’ fears: the center does in fact spy on Americans – but only on those who are suspected to be ‘anti-government’. “The misconceptions are that we are conducting...

Bangkok, Thailand - Over two months after the bloody finale of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war, a lingering row over civilian casualties continues to roil a fractured society. Sri Lankan authorities have insisted that their final military push against Tamil Tiger rebels didn't target hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind enemy lines. But aid workers, church officials, and government doctors reported that heavy shelling had caused mass casualties. A preliminary United Nations report estimated that 7,000 had died between January and May. On Wednesday, however, a group of doctors who had provided dramatic firsthand accounts of civilian suffering in...

The Obama administration’s “reset” of its relationship with Russia has largely failed, and in his second term, the president must press Moscow harder on human rights, which are under threat from President Vladimir Putin, Russian opposition leaders and Kremlin critics say. “In the beginning, the [Obama] administration mostly focused on global security aspects but forgot about human rights,” said Mr. Kasyanov, who is co-chairman of the Republican Party of Russia-People’s Freedom Party. At the 2009 Group of 20 summit in London, President Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, released a joint statement announcing a “fresh” start in U.S.-Russian relations....

I’m about to commit one of the most deadly sins of “serious” commentary: whataboutism. You see in the United States the idea that we need to punish Russian officials for their human rights violations has rapidly become a bi-partisan consensus. The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, a bill targeted at Russian human rights violators and their US-based assets, passed the US senate by a vote of 92 to 4. 92 to 4! In a deliberative body like the US senate, a chamber that can no longer pass a budget and that increasingly borders on complete dysfunction, a 92...

Obama’s Amazing AchievementsHis military intervention prompted some stunning reversals. By bombing Libya, President Obama has accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:(a) War-mongering liberals: Liberals are now chest-thumping about military “progress� in Libya. Even liberal television and radio commentators cite ingenious reasons why an optional, preemptive American intervention in an oil-producing Arab country, without prior congressional approval or majority public support — and at a time of soaring deficits — is well worth supporting, in a sort of “my president, right or wrong,� fashion. Apparently, liberal foreign policy is returning to the pre-Vietnam days of the hawkish “best...

TEL AVIV – A staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat served on the committee that invented the military doctrine used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya. As WND first reported, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world's leading organization pushing the military doctrine. Several of the doctrine's main founders sit on multiple boards with Soros. The doctrine and its founders, as WND reported, have been deeply tied...

“When it was my turn, they took me blindfolded,” the thief said. “Suddenly I felt a pain in my right hand that was out of this world. My hand had just been chopped off.” This is Gao, once the seat of an empire, and then a glorified village, and now a city the size of Scranton under the boot of its Islamist conquerors. Gao has become a place where thieves have their hands cut off, where women are forced to wear the stifling Hijab in 113 degree heat or be lashed and where unmarried couples are stoned to death. Borders...

BAMAKO, Mali — Isolated for centuries by the harsh desert that surrounds it, Timbuktu now finds itself even more cut off from the rest of the world. Rebels who captured the city in northern Mali in April have imposed a form of hard-edged Islamic rule, prompting many residents to flee in fear and changing the face of what had been a tolerant and easygoing destination that drew tourists from around the world. Women are now forced to wear full, face-covering veils. Music is banned from the radio. Cigarettes are snatched from the mouths of pedestrians. And the look of the...

Far from protecting hard-fought freedoms, modern human rights culture is being used to suppress liberty of conscience and restrain Christianity, he said. In one of his biggest addresses of the year, Benedict XVI said a false concept of human rights had gripped the western world. As a result, he said, religion is being marginalised and symbols of faith, such as the cross, are being treated with growing hostility. He also singled out how, he said, some charities and schools are limiting the freedom of Christians to practise or express their faith and spoke of the need for “conscientious objectors” who...

But look on the bright side, at least it wasn’t Sudan, Syria or Saudi Arabia. I’m coming around to the opinion that we should do everything possible to keep the UN Human Rights Council around. Not only is it the greatest source of irony since fish in a blacksmith shop, but it’s also a living reminder that the United Nations is to human rights as an exploding train is to transportation safety. The UN Human Rights Council met today in Geneva and elected Mauritania as its Vice-President and Rapporteur for the next year, the second highest position at the world’s...

Every so often, I share breakthrough stories about advances in “human rights” around the world. In France, it is against the law to say your husband is under-endowed or that your wife is fat. Across Europe, a satellite dish is now a human right. In Finland, broadband access is a basic right. There’s now an entitlement for free soccer broadcasts in Europe. In Italy, you have the right to…um…your testicles. Now, in honor of Sandra Fluke, the United Nations has decided that contraception is a human right. Not just a human right, a universal human right. The New York Times...

Barack Obama blunders again on the world stage By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: November 19th, 2012 Barack Obama: hardly off to a flying start It is only two weeks since his re-election, and his second term remains two months away, but Barack Obama is already blundering again on the world stage, with the kind of gaffes that would have been plastered on the front page of The New York Times if they had been committed by George W. Bush when he was in the White House. Obama's first term was littered with foreign policy gaffes, and there is every...

A Toronto barbershop has found itself at the centre of a human rights complaint after its barbers refused to cut a woman's hair. Faith McGregor, 35, went to the Terminal Barber Shop on Bay Street, back in June looking for a haircut. But she was turned away. The barbers, who are all Muslim, told her their religion didn't allow them to cut the hair of a woman who is not a member of their family. McGregor filed a human rights complaint.

FOLLOWING a harrowing three-day hearing at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the Iran Tribunal delivered its interim judgment on October 27th. According to the tribunal, which has no legal standing, the Islamic Republic of Iran committed crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights against its citizens during “the bloody decade” of 1980s. The tribunal was set up in 2007 by survivors and families of victims living in exile and comprises leading jurists from around the world. It heard statements from experts and witnesses on how the Islamic Republic systematically crushed political and religious dissent in the decade...

Dear Honorable UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Leaders Ref: Stop Vietnam from joining the UN Human Rights Council for the term 2014-2016. In a matter of days, the election of 18 members of the Human Rights Council will be held during on 12-16 November 2012 . UN’s stated criteria that members must “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” Also Candidates must be evaluated based on their domestic human rights records . In Vietnam, serious human rights violations continue to be committed. It strips basic freedoms from the people including freedom of religion;...

The Washington Free Beacon has obtained a report soon to be released by the United Nations that calls for an international campaign of legal attacks and economic warfare on a group of American companies that do business in Israel, including Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar Inc., and Motorola Solutions Inc. The Human Rights Council (HRC), a body dominated by Islamic countries and known for its hostility to, and heavy focus on, the Jewish State, issued the report. The George W. Bush administration refused to participate in the HRC, but President Barack Obama joined it soon after taking office. Members of the HRC include...

I would have shot him right between the eyes - this is is Islamic law. And women are chattel under the sharia. Yemeni woman sentenced to death for killing male relative who tried to rape her Friday, 19 October 2012 Al Arabiaya Yemeni woman A Yemeni woman who claimed to have shot her alleged rapist in self defense has been sentenced to death. (Reuters) A Yemeni woman has been sentenced to death for having opened fire and killed a male relative who climbed up the wall of her house in an attempt to rape her. Raja Hakimi was initially sentenced...

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights has warned Americans not to elect Republican Mitt Romney in next month’s presidential election, saying that doing so would be “a democratic mandate for torture.” The UN’s Ben Emmerson was referring to Romney’s refusal to rule out the use of waterboarding in interrogating terror detainees, a practice that President Barack Obama has ended. Colin Perkel of The Canadian Press reported Emmerson’s remarks from a symposium in Toronto on the impact of 9/11 on human rights: "The re-introduction of torture under a Romney administration would significantly increase the threat levels to...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has used excessive force against immigrants along the Mexican border and should cooperate in investigating border killings, including those of many young people, the top United Nations human rights official said on Thursday. "There have been very many young people, teenagers, who have been killed at the border," Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told a news conference. "The reports reaching me are that there has been excessive use of force by the U.S. border patrols while they are enforcing the immigration laws," she added. The family of a Mexican teen...

President Barack Obama has sent Muslim Public Affairs Council director Salam Al Marayati, who has said that Israel is a “suspect” in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to represent the United States at a human right conference in Warsaw. The Obama administration chose him to attend the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) annual 10-day human rights conference. He told the OSCE participants in Warsaw, “Hate speech that intends to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence against someone based on religion is harmful.” However, Al Marayati once told a radio host, “If we’re going to look at suspects [behind the...

PAKISTAN Faisalabad: 24-year old Christian abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry her abuser by Shafique Khokhar Shumaila Bibi kidnapped by a 26 year old Muslim Muhammad Javed Iqbal on the way home. Subjected to sexual assault and forced to study the Koran. On a pretext she managed to escape and return to her family. Her captor denounced the girl's father for "kidnapping" her. Shumaila's future hangs in the balance.

It is not difficult to see what a horror a second Obama presidency will look like. Obama is consistent in his foreign policy -- anti-freedom, pro-jihad. Four years into his presidency, the world is radically transformed, and soon will be unrecognizable. Anti-Israel, Pro-Hamas Muslim Leader Is US Delegate to Warsaw Human Rights Conference His most infamous statement was during a radio interview on September 11, 2001, accusing Israel of the attack on the WTC. Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Jewish Press For two weeks every year, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe holds what it refers to as the world’s...

The Islamic Republic Is Not Iran By Amil Iman We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in, in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess. The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the...

Chinese protester opposing government takeover of village land 'is crushed to death by state-controlled road-flattening truck' • Protester He Zhu Hua, appears to be crushed in shocking images • He opposed being moved after government tried to claim land for commercial use • Reports claim government then tried to hide body and sent security to quell anger from residents This is the horrifying moment a Chinese protester was allegedly brutally crushed to death by a government road flattening truck over a land dispute. The demonstrator had apparently resisted a government relocation when he appeared to be crushed by the huge...

Rights: The U.S. government no longer includes religious freedom in its annual Human Rights Report. We won't embarrass anyone by pointing to burnt out churches abroad while suppressing religious liberty at home. The declared reason for dropping the coverage is to avoid duplicating another document, the annual Report on International Religious Freedom. We suspect the reason is that an administration that's been apologetic about our leadership role in world affairs no longer wants to offend those nations who tolerate or even foster assaults on religious liberty, even as the administration suppresses it at home. The Pew Research Center has produced...

First it was the media, now it is the artists. Censorship in the birthplace of the so-called Arab Spring - Tunisia - is back. The government has already been accused of clamping down on reporters. And now, two Tunisian artists have been charged. Their crime: creating sculptures that the authorities say are harmful to public order and good morals. Nadia Jelassi's work is of a veiled woman surrounded by rocks and suggests she is being stoned, while Mohamed Ben Slama's work is of a child with ants streaming from a schoolbag that spelt out "God". Meanwhile in Egypt, two journalists...

Tunisia’s western city of Sidi Bouzid is now dry... Chanting “al-Charab haram” (“alcohol is sin”), dozens of Salafists burst into Sidi Bouzid’s Horchani hotel on Monday, September 3. The throng of men quickly homed in on the hotel’s liquor stock, seizing bottles of alcohol and throwing them against the walls or smashing them on the floor. The incident comes around four months after the city’s Salafist community first launched a war against alcohol consumption, pressuring or intimidating several bars into shutting down. Those who tried to resist saw their businesses come under attack, much like the Horchani hotel. ... I...

April 14, 1999, Wednesday COMMITTEE HEARING SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS: SUBCOMMITTEE ON NEAR EASTERN AND SOUTH U.S. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS) HOLDS HEARING ON THE CRISIS IN AFGANISTAN  WASHINGTON, D.C. SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS), CHAIRMAN U.S. SENATOR JOHN ASHCROFT (R-MO) U.S. SENATOR GORDON H. SMITH (R-OR) U.S. SENATOR ROD GRAMS (R-MN) U.S. SENATOR CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY) U.S. SENATOR PAUL DAVID WELLSTONE (D-MN), RANKING MEMBER U.S. SENATOR ROBERT G. TORRICELLI (D-NJ) U.S. SENATOR PAUL S. SARBANES (D-MD) U.S. SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD (D-CT) U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA) THE HONORABLE KARL F. INDERFURTH ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SOUTH ...

Landmark cases, brought by four British Christians, including two workers forced out of their jobs after visibly wearing crosses, have been heard today at the European Court of Human Rights David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has previously pledged to change the law to protect religious expression at work but official legal submissions on Tuesday to Strasbourg human rights judges made a clear “difference between the professional and private sphere”. James Eadie QC, acting for the government, told the European court that the refusal to allow an NHS nurse and a British Airways worker to visibly wear a crucifix at work...

In China a sad reality exists. Children are sometimes discarded as if they are not even humans. The babies are thrown into trash bins, rivers, and lakes to name a few. But, one amazing woman Lou Xiaoying, 88 has been a mother to many of these babies who were orphaned or discarded into trash bins. Lou has been responsible for saving over 30 abandoned babies from dumps, and trash bins, in her amazing life. As Lou lies on her death bed, China and the world are honoring her via social media, and regular media outlets for her great contribution to...

Nadia Ghaly’s cousin disappeared 40 years ago. She was introduced to a Muslim man as a young woman, subsequently vanished and resurfaced later three months pregnant wearing a hijab. She was the victim of a forced marriage. She is not alone. Coptic Christian women are routinely victimized and forcibly converted by Muslims in Egypt, Miss Ghaly says. In its annual Religious Freedom Report, released July 30, the U.S. State Department acknowledged the problem, but at the same time appeared to downplay it. The report described forcible conversions as "disputed,” asserting that while there were “occasional claims” of Muslim men forcing...

The election of a Sudanese warlord accused of genocide to the United Nations Human Rights Council is now virtually guaranteed, since he has the full backing of the world body's African delegation.

Freedoms of religion, speech, press and peaceful assembly are among the most important human rights we have. There is no "human right" to compel anyone to agree with one's political, religious or other views.To my regret, I did not dine at Chick-Fil-A yesterday. I live in the somewhat remote and rural highlands of the Republic of Panama and the nearest Chick-Fil-A is probably more than a thousand miles distant; going to one would have been inconvenient. However, many more people than usual apparently did find it convenient to go, judging by abundant photos on the internet. Here is one:I have...

[OFFICIAL CHARGES OF DISCRIMINATION FILED BY GAY RIGHTS REPRESENTATION AGAINST CHICK FIL A - IL] The Civil Rights Agenda, a local LGBT rights advocacy group, filed multiple complaints with the Illinois Department of Human Rights Thursday, alleging that the Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A restaurant chain’s “intolerant corporate culture” violates Illinois law and a provision in the state’s Human Rights Act. “In our current high speed media and social media environment, Chick-fil-A has announced and caused to be published, to hundreds of millions of people, that LGBT people are unacceptable and objectionable,” said Jacob Meister, Governing Board President of TCRA and the attorney...

The monstrous Islamic persecution, oppression and slaughter of Christians, Coptic Christians, Baha’is, Chaldo-Assyrians, Ahmadis, Jews and non-Muslims throughout the Middle East, South Central Asia and other Muslim countries cannot be sanctioned. But Obama is doing just that. Obama's Muslim advisers have gone so far as to block Middle Eastern Christians' access to the White house. Now, Obama has his henchmen like Jim Webb holding up any attempts at legislation to protect and/or defend these helpless minorities in Congress. Lawmakers clash over Middle East religious minorities bill The Hill, July 12 Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) ripped into Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.)...

How much does Barack Obama hate Israel and want to throw her under the bus? Here’s how much; the Obama administration not only excluded Israel from a new counterterrorism forum in Spain, it didn’t even mention Israel in its remarks. If there were ever a country that has dealt with murderous terrorist attacks over and over again, that country would be Israel. Here’s what Maria Otero, the State Department’s Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, said: Last September at the official launch of the Global Counterterrorism Forum, I had the privilege to introduce the premiere of a...

Don't want to promote "Islamophobia," doncha know. Nothing does that like reports of Muslims committing atrocities against Christians and other non-Muslims in the name of Islam—and of course challenging Muslim entities over this persecution is out of the question as far as this Administration is concerned. "State Department Purges Section on Religious Freedom from Its Human Rights Reports," by Pete Winn for CNS News, June 7: Stop murdering christians in Egypt The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that it released on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline...

There are no words. A Chinese couple who managed to avoid authorities long enough to actually birth a second child were fined 1.3 million yuan ($204,000) after family-planning authorities deemed them 'rich in assets', LifeNews.com reports. So far this is the highest fine on record. Even worse is that the amount was compounded because the baby turned out to be a girl. Local family planning authorities worked with commerce, industry and township officials to investigate the couple’s finances. The parents were deemed “rich in assets� and hit with the highest fine on record. The shock of the amount is compounded by the sex of the...

Sometimes in journalism it is best to let people simply speak for themselves. Yesterday I went to the first major public engagement of Chen Guangcheng since he left China to study for a while in the US Chen took questions for an hour at the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think-tank in New York. He spoke of his fears for the fate of his family back in China but also his hopes for democracy in China and his faith that the ‘innate goodness’ of Chinese people will ultimately triumph over the dead, perverting hand of an authoritarian state. The...

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 on May 24, 2012. As in previous years, the reports are full of over-critical remarks on the human rights situation in nearly 200 countries and regions as well as distortions and accusations concerning the human rights cause in China. However, the United States turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and kept silent about it. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011 is hereby prepared to reveal the true human rights situation of the United States...

WikiLeaks: The sleazy criminal organization dedicated to publishing U.S. secrets may loudly deny its leaks led to the hanging of a man in Iran Tuesday. But that's irrelevant because WikiLeaks gave Tehran the pretext it sought. A 24-year old Iranian man was the latest victim of the mullahs' monstrous tyranny this week, executed as a spy for Israel, supposedly for killing an Iranian nuclear scientist on behalf of his Zionist masters. That's a whiff of the twisted kangaroo court verdicts typical of Iran. In reality, Majid Jamali Fashi was a young kick-boxing instructor who visited Baku, Azerbaijan, for a tournament...