Free Republic

Ethiopia’s brutal Marxist dictator, known as the African Pol Pot, became the first fallen leader to be found guilty yesterday of genocide in his own country after a 12-year trial.Mengistu Haile Mariam, the former President, who fled to Zimbabwe in 1991, was accused along with top members of his military Government of killing thousands during his 17-year rule. The period was marked by vicious crackdowns on opponents, disastrous wars with neighbouring countries and rebel groups and devastating famines in which starvation was used to force peasants into submission. “Members of the Derg [Government] who are present in court today and...

New depths to Jimmy Carter’s fecklessness have emerged through the declassification of State Department cables relating to the fall of the Shah of Iran. As reported by the BBC, the Ayatollah Khomeini, in January 1979, secretly sought Carter’s assistance in overcoming opposition from Iran’s military, still loyal to the shah. Khomeini promised that if he could return to Iran from exile in France, which the United States could facilitate, he would prevent a civil war, and his regime would not be hostile to Washington. The soon-to-be Supreme Leader of Iran certainly knew a sucker when he saw one. What Carter...

Starring Andy Garcia and Peter O'Toole, "For Greater Glory" is a compelling war film based on the true story of the Cristero War -- a conflict caused by the brutal government crackdown on the Mexican Catholic Church in the 1920s. Released at a time when religious freedom, especially for Catholics, is being attacked in the United States and elsewhere, the picture is also particularly timely. Beautifully shot across the plains of northern and central Mexico and accompanied by a stirring soundtrack by Hollywood composer James Horner, the movie takes the audience through the harrowing violence and suppression of the Church...

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday slapped three men with carjacking charges, saying they took a man’s car at gunpoint from a Far South Side gas station. Two of the men are accused of trying to carjack another driver but they couldn’t figure out how to operate the victim’s vehicle. Long time readers will remember we advocated for a version of Operation Exile here in Illinois, where gun offenders were essentially "exiled" to federal prisons far away from their families and gang compatriots in the state penitentiaries. In Virginia, where it was pioneered, gun crimes dropped by over a third within months...

This is a sad story which just keeps getting worse. Socialist dictators Nicolas Maduro stole the recent election and seems to be getting away with it despite clear evidence that his opposition opponent Edmundo Gonzalez won by a wide margin. To solidify his rule, Maduro has been cracking down on dissent, jailing hundreds of opposition figures and forcing others to flee the country for their own safety. Last week, his government issued an arrest warrant for Gonzalez himself. In a letter posted on X on Monday, the Prosecutor’s Office said Gonzalez is suspected of “crimes associated with terrorism” including “usurpation...

Evan Neumann, charged with felonies for assaulting police officers during the riot, spoke to a Press Democrat reporter by phone from Belarus. He has been living in that country, an ally of Russia, since August 2021, when he fled across the border from Ukraine. Belarus granted him political asylum in early 2022 While his convictions about the 2020 election haven’t changed much, Evan Neumann says that if he could do it again he would not have traveled to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest Congress’ ratification of the vote. Neumann still questions whether the election was fairly tabulated,...

And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LordGod of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord: for he...

“Exile" conjures images of banished figures like Napoleon, who languished on the island of Elba, rendered powerless by isolation. Groups of people considered troublemakers also have been exiled from their lands. Diasporas of "undesirables" like the Jews have been a constant in the history of nations whose rulers wanted to be rid of what they considered indigestible elements. Exile within one's own country by a totalitarian regime has been less noted. For such an enterprise, we may look at Vichy France, which was under the thrall and control of a fascist political system imported by Germany but facilitated by French...

Between 70 AD and 120 AD, The Jewish people were driven out of the Holy Land, and the Nation of Judea was extinguished. The Jews would remain in exile, for almost two thousand heartbreaking years. Why? What happened two thousand years ago that brought this heartbreaking circumstance about? The Land of Israel was given to the seed of Abraham ,Isaac and Jacob, by none less than God himself, in an unconditional covenant. Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.I...

SPAIN'S former King Juan Carlos I has fled the country after becoming embroiled in a corruption scandal. The ex-head of state, 82, made the announcement in a letter to his son Felipe, the current king, amid an investigation by the Spanish Supreme Court into his alleged dealings in Saudi Arabia. It is an embarrassing exit for the monarch who reigned for almost 40 years until 2014, when he voluntarily handed over the reins to King Felipe.

Assyria conquered the kingdom of Israel, and deported many of the residents of Samaria and its surroundings to other Assyrian provinces, and brought deportees from other conquered territories to Samaria to take their place. Excavations at Tel Hadid, near Lod in Israel, have unearthed material remains that contribute to our understanding of these transformative years. Deportation of residents from rebellious vassal states was one of the ways Mesopotamian empires maintained control of their territory. This practice was devised, and largely used, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire... Mass deportations and resettlement of conquered peoples served as a fundamental tool of statecraft, economic...

Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Life in Exile: The Once-Powerful Political Couple Now Seeks Attention, Audience One evening, ... an old friend and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton sat down with the former president for dinner... Bill, ... looked thinner and more tired ... He is 72 now, ... He was, the friend says, a “bit sad, and more than a bit angry. [SNIP] “This guy’s political brain is still sharp—among the sharpest in the party—and he worries that [the Democratic Party] may be frittering away the chance it has to beat Trump next year.”That’s where the anger comes in....

The Purpose of Exile By Philip Cottraux Assyria. The terror of the ancient world is still infamous for their extreme brutality. When the Assyrians would conquer a city, they were known to have “child fires,” lining up the city’s children and forcing the parents to watch while they burned them en masse. They would flay survivors of defeated armies alive and adorn the walls of Nineveh with the skins. Inside, the streets were decorated with “head pyramids,” large piles of decapitated heads of conquered people. Lines of dismembered limbs were strewn from building to building, adorning the city like gruesome...

“It was part of the intimidation campaign to go after family members, including my mother.” This article is part of Index on Censorship partner Global Journalist’s Project Exile series, which has published interviews with exiled journalists from around the world. Abdullah Bozkurt, pictured with the last issue of the Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman (courtesy). In hindsight, there were many clues that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government was making preparations to eliminate Turkey’s independent media even before it launched a massive crackdown in July 2016. But perhaps the biggest tip-off was the March 2016 police raid and seizure of Zaman, Turkey’s largest...

British officials eye burka ban and stripping citizenship London terror attack: British officials eye burka ban and stripping citizenship --------------------------------------------------------- British Prime Minister Theresa May, speaking Sunday after a meeting of the government’s COBRA emergency committee, claimed there was “too much tolerance” of Islamist extremism in the U.K. and insisted that the country’s counterterrorism strategy would be reviewed. While such reviews remain in preliminary stages, a British intelligence source told Fox News that it is an “all hands at the pump” approach, with Joint Intelligence Operations to be carried out collaboratively with M15, Scotland Yard and the Army’s Special Air...

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A Russian analyst and journalist scrutinizing her home country from thousands of miles away, Kseniya Kirillova works out of an impersonal Oakland apartment that she deliberately keeps bare of mementos, except for a stuffed teddy bear memorializing another Russian opposition journalist who died doing the same kind of work.

/begin translation N. Korean Defector's Association, "Proposed Kim Jong-nam to Head the Government-in-exile...but He Opposed Third Generation Hereditary Rule" Yoo Ji-han 2017.02.21 Representatives from defector's organizations both inside and outside S. Korea proposed Kim Jong-nam to be a head of N. Korean government-in-exile, but he refused, arguing, "That is another third generation hereditary rule." In an interview with Donga-ilbo on Feb. 19(local time,) Kim Ju-il, the Secretary-general of International North Korean Defector's Association based in UK, said, "I have been in contact with Kim Jong-nam for last year and a half, asking him to head the government-in-exile." According to the...

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 6:47 a.m. ESTHillary Rebuked by Iraqi Leader New York Sen. Hillary Clinton has caused an international incident after she criticized Iraq's leading candidate to become prime minister as a result of last month's historic election, prompting a sharp rebuke. "Hillary Clinton, as far as I know, does not represent any political decision or the American administration, and I don't know why she said this," Dr. Ibrahim Jafari, who is expected to become prime minister, told the Times of London on Thursday. "She knows nothing about the Iraqi situation," he added. During an interview last Sunday,...

Catholic doctors who follow church teaching on sexual ethics cannot work as gynaecologists in Britain, the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) conference was told. Charlie O’Donnell, a consultant in emergency and intensive care medicine, said the best advice he could give to an “orthodox” Catholic wishing to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology would be to “emigrate”. Dr O’Donnell told the conference at Ealing Abbey, west London, on 17 May that a Catholic training to be a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology would soon find he or she had conscientious objections to such tasks as prescribing artificial contraceptives, giving unmarried couples fertility...

Remember how my computer would no longer play videos very well? Well, nothing worked, so I took it to the shop on Monday, and when I went back today even though it had been wiped and had new hardware installed it still wasn't working. Apparently it's kicked the bucket. G-d willing I will get another one some time next week and be back with you. It's been rough with no FR and no net for a solid week, though I suppose a little vacation from the Internet isn't a bad thing. I can't tell you exactly when I'll be back...