Free Republic

Dallas proclaimed itself the first “human rights county” in Texas. The commissioners court embraced the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an initiative that claims to cultivate communities worldwide, although the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC) has come under fire for anti-Israel bias and member countries with poor records. “Human rights abuses occur in our community, our country, and our world every day,” said Democrat Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who pushed the resolution to a vote on July 5. “We must lead at the local level. We can’t do everything but we can all do something.” Democrat commissioners...

Press StatementHeather NauertDepartment Spokesperson Washington, DC July 6, 2017 The United States is deeply concerned by the July 5, detention of prominent human rights defenders from Amnesty International Turkey and other respected institutions. As with past arrests of prominent human rights defenders, journalists, academics, and activists, we underscore the importance of respecting due process and individual rights, as enshrined in the Turkish Constitution, and consistent with Turkey’s own international commitments. As we have expressed on numerous occasions, persistent curbs on freedom of expression erode the foundations of democratic society. More voices, not fewer, are necessary in challenging times.

UN Human Rights High Commissioner Al Hussein said: “Our attempts at investigating the severe human rights violations in South Eastern Turkey are constantly rejected.” 35th Human Rights session of the United Nations Human Rights Council started in Geneva. UN Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein’s speech at the opening started with the Israel-Palestine issue and demanded an end to the pain both sides have endured. Al Hussein also stated that extrajudicial executions are widespread in many countries throughout the world still and people suffer inhumane treatment. “OUR EFFORTS ON TURKEY'S SOUTH EAST ARE HINDERED” Al Hussein said the...

The Trump administration may decide to follow the example of George W. Bush and wash its hands of the UN’s Human Rights Council. Reuters reports this morning that the US may announce as soon as tomorrow that it will withdraw from the panel unless the UN commits to serious reform, especially in its obsession with Israel at the expense of real human-rights abuses: The United States is expected to signal on Tuesday that it might withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council unless reforms are ushered in including the removal of what it sees as an “anti-Israel bias”,...

SHANGHAI (AP) — A man investigating working conditions at a Chinese company that produces Ivanka Trump-brand shoes has been arrested and two others are missing, the arrested man's wife and an advocacy group said Tuesday. Hua Haifeng was accused of illegal surveillance, according to his wife, Deng Guilian, who said the police called her Tuesday afternoon. Deng said the caller told her she didn't need to know the details, only that she would not be able to see, speak with or receive money from her husband, the family's breadwinner....

Stuck in a Bangkok jail with a deportation order against her, Chen Guiqiu waited with dread over what seemed certain to come next. A Thai immigration official showed her surveillance video of the jail entrance, where more than a dozen Chinese security agents were waiting. Within minutes, Chen feared, she and her two daughters would be escorted back to China, where her husband, prominent rights lawyer Xie Yang, was held on a charge of inciting subversion - and where punishment for attempting to flee surely awaited her. After weeks on the run, Chen was exhausted, and so was her luck....

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is asking whether a suspected former Russian intelligence officer-turned U.S. lobbyist and the firm behind the unsubstantiated anti-Trump dossier should have registered as foreign agents for their efforts to bring down a U.S. law on behalf of the Kremlin. According to a complaint filed with the Justice Department, Fusion GPS, which was also involved in the creation of the unsubstantiated dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, was involved in the pro-Russia campaign to kill the Global Magnitsky Act around the same time. In 2012, President Obama signed into...

NEW YORK (AP) — The latest on sexual harassment allegations at Fox News (all times local): An attorney for a former Fox News contributor is calling for an independent investigation of sexual harassment allegations against host Bill O’Reilly. Lisa Bloom represents Wendy Walsh, a former Fox News contributor who says she lost a segment on “The O’Reilly Factor” after she refused to go to O’Reilly’s bedroom following a 2013 dinner in Los Angeles.

China's foreign ministry has denied reports that Chinese food companies are canning human flesh and selling it in Africa as corned beef. The country's state-run Xinhua news agency said one tabloid newspaper in Zambia was falsely quoting an unnamed woman living in China. She said Chinese firms were collecting dead human bodies, marinating them and packing them in tins. Chinese spokesman Hong Lei said the reports were "irresponsible".

Once the Middle EastÂ’s flourishing democracy, Turkey under Erdogan is lost in a sea of tyranny and political mayhem For all free and democratic societies, freedom of expression and the press are deemed sacred rights and it is considered sacrilege that any governmental authority attempts to control or censor these freedoms. Many in the US and Europe are under the impression that countries such as Cuba or North Korea may have the worst records of human rights violations along with the prosecution of journalists on flimsy accusations. The truth is that one of the worst records of human rights violations...

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who comes to the UN from his glass house of Jordan, should not be throwing stones at the United States Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a Jordanian, assumed his functions as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on September 1, 2014. He has recently been obsessed with criticizing the Trump administration for a variety of alleged human rights sins. Considering the sorry human rights record in his home country of Jordan, Zeid Hussein’s obsession smacks of utter hypocrisy. His charges are also baseless. In a speech that Zeid Al Hussein delivered in Geneva...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in a talk sponsored by the Falun Dafa Association in Argentina, titled “An Evil Never Before Seen on This Planet”, which addressed a dark secret in today’s China: the forced removal of organs of people living in China, with Yu Zhenjie and Dong Yuhua. Both are survivors of forced labor camps and torture in that nation. The statements of Yu Zhenjie and Dong Yuhua yesterday had me in tears. For those who do not know, Falun Dafa is not a political doctrine, nor an economic theory, nor a militant protest movement. Falun Dafa, also...

A new law in Arkansas that bans the most common procedure used in second-trimester abortions is making international headlines. Supporters believe the law prohibiting dismemberment abortion benefits the unborn baby, while opponents believe it punishes the mother. But there's a third life involved: the father. "What if we said to men, 'Before you can have a vasectomy...,'" said State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock. "That would be so outrageous. But they don't see the outrage in constantly putting the thumb on women to dictate what they can do and not do."

<p>AT LEAST 4,800 people have been killed by Philippine security forces and unidentified gunmen in a lawless anti-drug campaign since President Rodrigo Duterte took office just six months ago, according to Human Rights Watch. The Obama administration has repeatedly criticized what it calls the “extrajudicial killings.” But Rex Tillerson, the oil executive nominated to be secretary of state by President-elect Donald Trump, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that he was not ready to judge whether the Duterte government is guilty of human rights violations.</p>

During a panel discussion Thursday at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference, CIA Director John Brennan was trying to make the point that just because an individual has an “activist” background, that wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, keep him from working for the federal government in sensitive positions. After all, he said, the CIA hired him even after he admitted voting for a communist in the 1976 presidential elections.In 1980, Brennan was trying to obtain a top security clearance for the Central Intelligence Agency, and part of the process involved taking a lie detector test. He was asked: “Have you ever...

By:Hassan Mahmoudi December 6th, is students day in Iran. This day marks the anniversary of martyrdom of three Iranian students shut dead at Tehran University by the Shah’s forces a day after widespread demonstrations that occurred in Iran in 1953. During the past decades the event has become a national day commemorated by Iran’s students. In recent years despite all the crackdown and suppression of students by the clerical regime the event has been commemorated in Iran, in particular by university students. After the 1979 revolution the Iranian regime misused Student’s day to their own political benefit. This year President...

CNSNews.com) – Delegates of the U.N. Human Rights Council opened a meeting in Geneva on Monday by standing silently with heads bowed, after the delegation of Venezuela’s leftist government requested a minute’s silence to “honor” the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Not everyone in the chamber took part. U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer described the honoring of “human rights abuser Fidel Castro” as “despicable” and said that his non-governmental organization “stayed seated.” In an official U.N. webcast, a member of the Israeli delegation, seated behind Venezuela’s representatives, can be seen walking out as Venezuelan ambassador Jorge Valero asked members...

Egyptian human rights activist Hany Elsadek reiterated his pro-Nazi sentiments in videos posted on YouTube. Responding to MEMRI's exposure of his previous pro-Hitler clips, Elsadeq declared: "I love Hitler because he was an honorable man, who exposed you for what you are." Elsadek, who heads the "Middle East for Rights and Freedoms," signed off one of his new videos, posted on his YouTube channel on November 27, with a Nazi salute. For his previous statements, see MEMRI clip 5749.   Hany Elsadek: "I'd like to respond to some Israeli websites which published videos of me talking about Hitler. They mock...

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday greeted the news that Fidel Castro had died by denouncing Cuba’s longtime leader as a “brutal dictator” with a legacy of bloodshed. Trump, who vowed to help the island nation’s people achieve freedom and prosperity, did not explicitly repeat campaign-trail promises to roll back President Obama’s historic outreach to the island nation. The entrepreneur’s reaction could scarcely have been more different than the sitting commander in chief’s response. Obama declared that now was the time to “extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people” and largely sanitized deep Cold War-era criticisms of Castro’s record...

What a Mickey Mouse province Ontario actually is On Friday, Douglas Cardinal, an idiot described in Canada’s mushy media as “a Canadian activist,” applied in the Superior Court of Ontario for an injunction to prevent the use of the word “Indians” before Game 3 of the ALCS is played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Cardinal brought the injunction against the Indians, Major League Baseball and Rogers, the company that owns the Blue Jays, Rogers Centre and that will broadcast the home games of the Blue Jays during the post-season play. In addition to the Superior Court action, Cardinal has...