Free Republic

Adolescent pregnancy is related to a “whole string of human rights violations” and so it must gain more attention in global development policy, says the UN’s World Population Monitoring Report. … Some 7.3 million teen women give birth every year. 2 million of these are under 15 years of age. Every day, roughly 5,000 girls give birth. Yearly, 70 million young women lose their lives during pregnancy and childbirth. … “The rights of young girls cannot be trampled on any longer,” said Renate Bähr, the executive director of the German Foundation for World Population. “Teen pregnancies can only be successfully...

The White House welcome of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki this week couldn't come at a more awkward time for President Obama, whose fecklessness in foreign affairs will be his most enduring legacy. He has managed to insult our most important allies again and again -- and not just in the most recent cellphone-listening scandal involving German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others. At the same time, Obama has shown weakness to our enemies. But the Maliki visit is in a category all its own. Iraq is wracked by sectarian violence that is killing more than a thousand Iraqis a month....

Laws to apply to the Sultanate's majority Muslim population The Sultan of Brunei announced on Tuesday the gradual introduction of harsh Islamic punishments, such as death by stoning for adulterers, severing of limbs for theft and flogging for a wide range of crimes including abortion and consumption of alcohol.

While thinking about the real problem with our culture I wondered about how much we need pro-life pregnancy centers where ever there is a culture of death center. I stumbled upon this site and immediately recognized it as a means to empower the individual, forget the republic. Libertarians have nothing on these people. Masters degrees in community organizing. Who'd a thought.

European lawmakers this month will vote on a measure that promotes abortion as a fundamental human right, while taking aim at the conscientious objection rights of pro-life doctors and health workers. Critics see the move as an attempt to dictate abortion policy to individual European Union governments, despite an acknowledgement by leading E.U. institutions that there is no consensus on the matter across the 28 member-states. The controversial draft report, which is being promoted by socialist members of the European Parliament (MEPs), was passed last month by the legislature’s committee on women’s rights and gender equality. …

During this local political season, it is important that our communication with one another be characterized by a firm allegiance to honesty, integrity, and truth. As a local pastor, I decry sins of the tongue - slander, gossip, lies, outbursts of wrath, false accusations - all dishonor our Creator and defame others who are made in the image of God. It is my desire to speak the truth in love. To that end I wish to address the misleading way in which the agenda of the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered (LGBT) community has been linked by some, including mayoral...

'Eyes gouged out, bodies hanging from hooks, and fingers removed with pliers': Horrific claims of torture emerge as soldiers reveal gory Kenyan mall massacre details Kenyan soldiers claim to find scenes of torture by mall terrorists They say children found dead in food fridges with knives still in bodies Men were said to have been castrated and had fingers removed By Paul Bentley Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2434278/Kenya-mall-attack-torture-claims-emerge-soldiers-Eyes-gouged-bodies-hooks-fingers-removed.html#ixzz2g8kwK3gd Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Kenyan police and soldiers have pinned down the remaining gunmen who opened fire at a shopping centre earlier today, killing 30 and leaving at least 50 others injured. A security source at the scene in the capital Nairobi confirmed moments ago the attackers have been isolated. The source said: 'The attackers have been isolated and are pinned down in an area on one of the floors - the rest of the mall seems to be secure.' No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it is looking increasingly likely the Somalia terrorist group al-Shabaab may be responsible. A statement released...

A series of fresh revelations about atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by Western-backed Syrian "rebels" had sparked alarm among analysts, further complicating Obama's already tough-push for support to launch military strikes against the Assad regime. ... the latest atrocities are being cited by critics of the warmongering as more reasons not to join the civil war on behalf of ruthless jihadists... Christian villagers quoted in new reports [URL at link] said the rebels had, among other atrocities, forced them to convert to Islam or be murdered while shouting the now-infamous "Allahu Akbar" war cry. Christian homes and churches were reportedly...

Human Rights organizations from around the world are supporting Russia’s effort to protect children from homosexual propaganda. A statement from civil society affirms the recently enacted Russian law, which imposes fines on individuals and groups that promote homosexuality among minors, as important steps towards fulfilling international obligations towards the family and minors. A Russian pro-family sign Organizations from around the world are “rushing” to offer their support according to Profesionales por la Etica, the Spain-based organization coordinating the effort. In just one week, 71 organizations have offered their support. Russia is protecting “genuine and universally recognized human rights against artificial...

We marched against the recent attack on voting rights. We demanded justice in the face of Stand Your Ground laws and racial profiling. We marched to raise awareness on unemployment, poverty, gun violence, immigration, and gay rights. And we called for action on climate change. Chances are, when you think about civil rights, environmental issues aren't on the radar screen. But stop and think about it. Remember Hurricane Katrina? The hurricane that leveled New Orleans showed that severe weather in low-income neighborhoods and communities of colour is a matter of life and death. The images from the storm are hard...

A special unit of the religious police pursues magical crime aggressively, and the convicted face death sentences.The sorceress was naked. The sight of her bare flesh startled the prudish officers of Saudi Arabia's infamous religious police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), which had barged into her room in what was supposed to be a routine raid of a magical hideout in the western desert city of Madinah's Al-Seeh neighborhood. They paused in shock, and to let her dress. The woman -- still unclothed -- managed to slip out of the window of...

Amanda Lindhout traveled to Somalia hoping to find a story that would launch her career as a television reporter. Four days after arriving in the country with a photographer friend, both were taken hostage by Islamist insurgents. While in captivity, she was “starved, beaten and sexually brutalized” according to her memoir of the 2008 saga set to be released next month... Lindhout spent fifteen months “of harrowing captivity” after being pulled from the car in which she was traveling by a group of masked men. During her 460-day ordeal, the aspiring reporter converted to Islam in order not to be...

As Britain puts airport staff on alert to spot potential victims of forced marriage, one campaigning group says the trick of putting a spoon in their underwear has saved some youngsters from a forced union in their South Asian ancestral homelands. The concealed spoon sets off the metal detector at the airport in Britain and the teenagers can be taken away from their parents to be searched -- a last chance to escape a largely hidden practice wrecking the lives of unknown thousands of British youths. The British school summer holidays, now well under way, mark a peak in reports...

Before you join Jay Leno and Susan Sarandon and sign an open letter to Gov. Jerry Brown to protest "solitary confinement" in California prisons' security housing units, there are a few things you should know. Start with the criminal records of the leaders of the Short Corridor Collective -- the four inmates who, despite their "extreme isolation," orchestrated a hunger strike with more than 30,000 inmate participants July 8. While serving time for burglary in Folsom State Prison, hunger strike leader Todd Ashker stabbed a fellow inmate to death in 1987. During his murder trial, a fellow inmate and fellow...

Beijing says the human rights situation in China is at a historic best, rejecting comments from a senior U.S. diplomat that the rights situation is deteriorating in China, with relatives of activists increasingly being harassed and policies in ethnic areas becoming more repressive. In a statement issued late Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry said that the Chinese are enjoying unprecedented rights, but added those rights must be exercised within China’s law. … Rights watchers have been alarmed by the targeting of relatives of high-profile dissidents, including blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who exposed abuses in the enforcement of China’s one-child policies, and...

Western diplomats at the Rouhani inauguration Sunday should challenge him to release political prisoners The inauguration of Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran on Sunday has stirred considerable hope among some Western observers for the start of a new era of liberalization in the Islamic Republic. Mr. Rouhani may prove to be the reformer his supporters claim, but the luxury of such optimism isn't available to the hundreds of dissidents who have run afoul of the Islamic Republic and are trapped in its prisons. Since Mr. Rouhani's election in mid-June, the regime's executions of prisoners—a good barometer of a government's...

President Robert Mugabe has yet again revived his acerbic attacks on Zimbabwe's gay community whom he called worse than pigs and threatened to behead them. Mugabe is a self-proclaimed homophobe who in the past has labelled gay people "worse than pigs and dogs", and threatened them with severe punishment. Mugabe's latest threats were made in Mutare where he was addressing a rally at the Aerodrome Ground on Tuesday, according to a NewsDay report. In the report, Mugabe is quoted telling his followers that: "If you take men and lock them in a house for five years and tell them to...

Amid a surge of anti-gay violence and repression in several countries, the United Nations’ human rights office on Friday launched its first global outreach campaign to promote tolerance and greater equality for lesbians, gays, transgender people and bisexuals. Called Free & Equal, it’s an unprecedented effort by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to change public attitudes around the world on issues that have bitterly divided the U.N.’s own member states. The multi-pronged campaign—announced at a news conference in Cape Town, South Africa—will include videos and public-service announcements distributed through social media, a new website, a...

"When the government has the power to deny legal rights and due process to one vulnerable group, everyone's rights are at risk." So says the American Civil Liberties Union on the section of their website dedicated to the issue of immigrants' rights. "No Human Being Is Illegal" reads the banner at the top of the page, a tacit indictment of any who don't tow the liberal line when it comes to immigration policy. Scroll over to a different section of the website, and you'll find this: "The 'War on Women' describes the legislative and rhetorical attacks on women and women's...