Free Republic

As Occupy Wall Street droned on about the evils of corporate avarice last month, a multimillion-dollar international scandal broke in Bogotá, exposing greed and corruption in the "nongovernmental organization" (NGO) world of human rights.

Ministry of Welfare Destroys Ethiopian Homes by R. D. Weisskopf, founder of the UnPromised Land channel Despite the widespread outcry against the Ministry of Welfare, senior management refused this week to fight corruption which has been deeply-entrenched in the Ministry of Welfare for over 30 years. One of the communities that has suffered most at the hands of the Ministry of Welfare are Ethiopian immigrants. According to the Jewish Agency, Ethiopians are less than 3% of Israel’s immigrant population while Ethiopian children represent 50% of the immigrant population under the Ministry of Welfare’s control. One of the many testimonies linked...

I'll start off this post by informing readers that they will not identify the most outrageous part of this story from the headline, not here at Hot Air, and not at Fox News, which headlines the story, ‘Do Crosses at Catholic University Violate “Human Rights” of Muslims?’ Before we get to the most outrageous part of the story, let’s hit the teeth-grinding allegations in the complaint (via Katie Pavlich): The Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights confirmed that it is investigating allegations that Catholic University violated the human rights of Muslim students by not allowing them to form a Muslim...

Catholic University has been accused of violating the human rights of Muslim students by not allowing them to form a Muslim student group and by not providing them rooms without Christian symbols for their daily prayers, according to a complaint filed with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights. The 60-page complaint said Muslim students “must perform their prayers surrounded by symbols of Catholicism – e.g., a wooden crucifix, paintings of Jesus, pictures of priests and theologians which many Muslim students find inappropriate.” SNIP Patrick Reilly, the president of the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization that promotes Catholic identity among...

Diane Sawyer: "Moderate Islamists" government in Tunisia - What the heck is that? This ("moderate Islamists") was D. Sawyer's invented language today [Oct. 24, 2011]. (World News With Diane Sawyer - ABC) --- PBS NewsHour - Oct. 24, 2011 Gwen Ifill had guests: Michelle Dunn (Atlantic Journal) and Hisham Melhem, Washington bureau chief for Al-Arabiya TV. Surprisingly, it was Michelle Dunn that typically was caught up in the media romance-with-Arab-spring frenzy and lied/said that defended the 'Sharia' legalization in Tunisia. Whereas the Arab Muslim Hisham of al-Arabiya that was more defining it in clarity, 'Islamic law' being the main Vs...

The home secretary has called for the Human Rights Act to be scrapped, less than a fortnight after Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said it was "here to stay". The act enshrines the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. But Theresa May told the Sunday Telegraph she "personally" would like to see it go because of the problems it caused for the Home Office. ..... Prime Minister David Cameron said he agreed with Mrs May that the act should be scrapped and replaced with a British Bill of Rights.

U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with Honduran President Porfirio Lobo next month at the White House to discuss a broad range of bilateral and regional economic and security issues, according to a press release. The Oval Office Meeting on October 5 will come only a few weeks after Lobo’s address at the United Nations, where he highlighted his country’s commitment to restoring human rights in the aftermath of the June 2009 coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. “The President also welcomes the opportunity to underscore the strong bonds of friendship between the American and Honduran people, as well as...

March 03, 2011 HRW Founder Bernstein Starts Advancing Human Rights (AHR) Robert Bernstein, the founder and former chairman of Human Rights Watch who publicly renounced his ties with the organization due to distorted and disproportionate focus on free and open Israel at the expense of the rest of the Middle East -- mostly unfree -- has just launched a new human rights organization, Advancing Human Rights. Why the need for a new organization? Bernstein, 88, explains: Some human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch, do not condemn incitement to genocide, Arab hate speech being spewed daily in Gaza, particularly, and...

(Snip) An estimated 200,000 people are trapped in a brutal system of political prison camps akin to Hitler's concentration camps and Stalin's gulag. Slave labor, horrific torture and bestial living conditions are now well-documented in numerous reports by human rights organizations, through the testimonies of survivors of these camps who have escaped. Although there is still a shroud of mystery surrounding North Korea, the world can no longer claim ignorance as an excuse. A growing number of North Korean defectors have shared their stories. Lee Sung Ae told British Parliament about how when she was jailed, all her finger-nails were...

Colleague tries to blackmail her into converting to Islam, marrying him. A Christian nurse here filed a police report on Saturday (Sept. 3) alleging she was raped by a Muslim colleague who filmed the act in an attempt to blackmail her into renouncing her faith and marrying him, she and hospital sources ... Christians have little legal or societal standing in Pakistan, and Muslim criminals tend to assume they will not be prosecuted if their victims are Christians. ... Although Shaista and her family have filed an FIR with police, getting justice without higher government help may be difficult

Mesbah-Yazdi, the theoretician of violence, gave a new speech at the end of Ramadan (end of August) in which he criticized the opinion of those people who claim Islam is based on generosity and respect for Human Rights. In this speech he said: “Democracy, Human Rights and the rights of citizenship have no place in Islam.” He continued that there is no room for freedom of speech and thought in Islam, and that Islam is based on strictness and violence. Muslims and those who convert to the religion of Islam must only adhere to the opinions of the leader of...

The majority of people feel upset and lonely when they are deprived of access to the internet, according to consumer research. A new study has revealed that 53 per cent feel upset when denied access and 40 per cent feel lonely if they are unable to go online. The research found that people experience these feelings even if denied online access for a short time. The scientists reported the volunteers told of physiological and physical symptoms comparable to addicts trying to quit smoking or drugs. These included feeling fidgety, anxious and isolated, and even reaching out for their mobile phone,...

A consultation paper to be launched within days will open up a debate on the future of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees "the right to a family life". Article 8 is increasingly being used by foreign criminals and illegal immigrants to dodge deportation. A highly-placed source told The Sunday Telegraph that the issue would be raised in a paper on immigration to be issued by Home Secretary Theresa May before Parliament breaks up for the summer. It comes as this newspaper can reveal that a new Article 8 test case has created a "loophole"...

On July 7, Humberto Leal Garcia, Jr is scheduled to die. He was convicted in a Texas court in 1994 of rape and murder–a capital offense for which he was sentenced to death. But this case is different from other Texas death penalty cases for the fact that Leal is a Mexican citizen. When he was arrested, he was denied the right under international law to contact the Mexican consulate. In 2004, Mexico sued the United States at the International Court of Justice for denying one of its citizens the his right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The...

Smuggled letters allege authorities are using mass rape as a weapon inside Iran's most notorious prisons. Prison guards in Iran are giving condoms to criminals and encouraging them to systematically rape young opposition activists locked up with them...authorities are intentionally facilitating mass rape and using it as a form of punishment. Mehdi Mahmoudian, an outspoken member of Iran's Participation Front, a reformist political party, is among those prisoners who have succeeded in smuggling out letters revealing the extent of rape inside some of the most notorious prisons. ... one young prisoner was raped seven times in a single night. "In...

Iran announced on Sunday that it has decided to bar a special United Nations (UN) human rights reporter from entering the country. The state-run Press TV reported that the Human Rights Committee of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) decided to prevent the reporter from entering Iran, arguing that the UN does not monitor human rights violations in Western countries. "The United States, Israel and the UK are the biggest violators of human rights in the world and the United Nations Human Rights Committee should send their reporters to those countries instead of Iran," member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign...

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has turned a blind eye to most of the world’s worst abusers, UN Watch has found. In an exhaustive study, the watchdog group examined all statements by Pillay published on the UN website between September 2008 and June 2010. The findings show “a questionable sense of priorities,” the group reported. “Ms. Pillay turned a blind eye to most of the world’s worst abusers… She failed to voice any concern for victims in 34 countries rated ‘Not Free’ by Freedom House—meaning those with the worst records, and the most needy victims.” Syria was...

The Internet is a fundamental human right, a United Nations report released on Friday proclaims -- a statement that resonates all the more in the wake of the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and the ongoing uprisings and protests in the Middle East and North Africa. The Internet, and sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, played a huge role in helping protesters organize and spread information, and also in spreading the word about what was going on around the world. Says the UN report on the "promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression": The...

Saudi authorities have re-arrested an activist who defied a ban on female drivers in the conservative kingdom, a security official said Monday... Through Facebook, the campaigners set June 17 as the day all women should drive their cars. The page, called "Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself," was removed after more than 12,000 people indicated their support for the call. The campaign's Twitter account also was deactivated. Al-Sherif was detained for several hours on Saturday by the country's religious police and released after she signed a pledge agreeing not to drive. ...Khobar prison chief Ayoub ben...

Lawyers for the suspected al-Qaida mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole said Tuesday they have filed a case against Poland at Europe's court of human rights over alleged abuse against him at a CIA-run site in that country about eight years ago. The Open Society Justice Initiative, a New York-based human rights group, and lawyers for Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri are challenging Poland for "active complicity" in the extraordinary rendition program carried out under then-President George W. Bush. The case filed with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, seeks in part to press Poland...