Free Republic

Venezuela just won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, though it transparently does not “uphold the highest standards” on rights, as members are supposed to. The nation’s rulers are destroying it. Food and medicine are scarce, vaccine-preventable diseases are spreading and maternal and infant mortality are soaring. The government routinely tortures political prisoners and, according to a July UN report, death squads break into homes, assault women and execute the men. More than 10 percent of Venezuela’s 30 million people have fled the country.

Uninformed savants across the political spectrum have pilloried President Trump for his eminently rational decision to draw down the U.S. troop commitment (initially, only 25, as it turns out!) to the Syrian morass (whose “dynamic” has remained largely unchanged since the late 1940s). Most of the ire directed at Mr. Trump has to do with hand-wringing over our “Kurdish allies,” even after the President warned Turkey not to engage in its habitual behaviors — since Ataturk created his ethno-racst state — towards the Kurds. Regardless, here are a few salient points one should bear in mind about the Kurds which the hand-wringers conveniently ignore in their hagiographies:Kurdish predatory mass killings of Christians...

LeBron James has been silent on the matter of China throwing a massive temper tantrum over Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeting and deleting a limp slogan in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. With the NBA spasming and losing bowel control around him, the world’s most visible basketball player managed to go more than a week without so much as uttering a “no comment” on record, which is no small feat. LeBron broke that silence Monday night, and in a way that perfectly captures the NBA’s own queasy, craven, profit-driven equivocation on the subject. “We all talk about...

Statement from the Press Secretary  FOREIGN POLICY    Issued on: October 12, 2019   Today, President Donald J. Trump released $50 million in stabilization assistance for Syria to protect persecuted ethnic and religious minorities, and advance human rights.  This funding will provide emergency financial assistance to Syrian human rights defenders, civil society organizations, and reconciliation efforts directly supporting ethnic and religious minority victims of the conflict.  It will also go toward increased accountability, removal of explosive remnants of war, community security for stabilization assistance, documenting human rights abuses and international humanitarian law violations, and support for survivors of gender-based violence...

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Thursday that he is not asked about U.S. "human rights abuses" when traveling in China. Kerr made the comment amid scrutiny over the National Basketball Association's handling of a general manager's support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Asked if he'd been questioned about China's history on human rights during trips to the country, Kerr replied, "No, nor has our record of human rights abuses come up either." "None of us are perfect and we all have different issues that we have to get to and saying that is my right as an...

For a profile in courage, consider a very significant move by the Trump administration this week in defense of Muslims. Just days before taking up new trade talks with China, the administration announced a dramatic stand in defense of up to 2 million Chinese Muslims in concentration camps and against companies that are using their technology to spy on the Chinese in their daily lives. Not that I expect the media to give the president and his administration points for defending the religious liberty of people around the world, but when you consider that the NBA couldn't find the character...

Fighting China’s egregious violations of human rights – including the imprisonment of up to 3 million Muslims in concentration camps – is “what we do, and who we are,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said of America Wednesday at a speech before the Vatican. Pompeo said the “stakes are even higher” for human dignity than during the Cold War and that nations confronting China for its use of concentration camps to eliminate ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims are “following the wisdom of Jesus.” Pompeo was speaking at a symposium at the Holy See dedicated to defending religious freedom and human...

4.6 million Chinese uyghur Muslims are locked up in concentration camps and their organs are being sold online. Their only crime is being Muslim. Why is nobody talking about this? They are forced to be athiests and Muslim women are forced to be married to ugly atheist men. Smh

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan, August 16, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A public art event in Grand Rapids, Michigan next month will feature men and women with Down syndrome performing as “drag queens” and “drag kings.” A drag group known as “Drag Syndrome” is comprised of performers with Down syndrome, and is an LGBT activist's attempt to promote so-called “inclusion.” Their performances feature song and dance by men wearing women’s dresses, garish makeup, wigs, and in some cases fake breasts. Women sport beards and men’s clothing. A local TV channel, Wood TV, reports that "some people may be concerned because people with Down...

Over the past two months, the world has seen the people of Hong Kong bravely stand up to the growing threat of totalitarianism. What began as a protest against a bill that would allow prisoners to be extradited to mainland China has evolved into a movement to demand that the Hong Kong government (largely now controlled by China’s Communist Party) adhere to the promises of freedom and autonomy it made when Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997. Protesters have flooded the streets since June – despite the threat of being arrested, smothered with tear gas, pelted with rubber...

Catholic Archbishop Joseph Naumann praised pro-life advocates for fighting for the “most important human rights issue of our time” Monday during the national Diocesan Pro-Life Leadership Conference. The Catholic Herald reports Naumann encouraged pro-life church leaders not to give up, despite their struggles against an aggressive and emboldened pro-abortion movement. “This is a moment of great opportunity as well as a moment of great peril for our culture and society,” Naumann said. The archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas, Naumann also serves as the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Pro-Life Activities. On Aug. 5, he spoke...

Judicial Watch today released two sets of heavily redacted State Department documents, 38 pages and 48 pages, showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN). Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a June 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department after it failed to respond to a February 2018 request seeking records of the Obama State Department’s...

Jewher Ilham, a human rights activist who fled Communist China after her father was imprisoned, noted that China’s concentration camps are like the ones that operated during the Holocaust and that human body organs are being sold. Ilham spoke at this week’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, held at the State Department. She also spoke with CNSNews.com about the conditions of the persecuted in Communist China and the possible actions that could be taken to lessen the harm done to Chinese minorities by the authoritarian government there. “My father, Ilham Tohti, is in a Chinese prison serving a life sentence...

NEW YORK, July 5 (C-Fam) Are divorce, cohabitation, same sex marriage, out of wedlock birth and adolescent sex good for women? The latest report from UN Women considers them “a positive reflection of women’s empowerment.” UN Women calls family life “an ambivalent space for women and girls.” “Families can have a darker side: they can be places of violence and discrimination, spaces where women and girls are often denied the resources they need, where they sometimes eat least and last and where their voices are stifled and their autonomy is denied,” the report says, concluding, “As such, the recognition of...

Instead of the honest and realistic public discussion about the compatibility of Sharia with Western secular norms that Sweden and all Western countries need to have, this will likely lead to a great deal of public handwringing about “Islamophobia,” and new initiatives against the freedom of speech and the resistance to Islamization. “Over 90 Percent of Swedes think Islam is incompatible with human rights,” Voice of Europe, June 30, 2019: The University of Gävle in Sweden every year releases a “Diverity barometer” where people in Sweden are asked about their attitudes towards diversity. In the latest barometer they conclude that...

What is clear is the prospect of further damage to the UN's already shaky credibility Three cases of human rights abuses reared their ugly head again this week. The United Nations’ role has been called into question, including the responses of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to the criticisms. The first human rights case involves Myanmar. The Free Rohingya Coalition criticized Secretary General Guterres and former UN Resident Coordinator in Myanmar Renata Lok-Dessallien for failing to safeguard thousands of Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority, in Myanmar. The group cited the findings in a 36-page official report entitled “A brief and...

"No monarch, no parliament, no government, and certainly no bureaucratic agency operating the pseudo-law of section 13 can claim jurisdiction over my right to think freely, to read freely, to speak freely and to argue freely." Those were the closing words of Mark Steyn's testimony before parliamentarians on the Canadian House of Commons' so-called justice and human rights committee just two weeks ago. His call fell on deaf ears. Yesterday, the justice committee tabled its report on "online hate" in Canada's parliament. The report laid out nine recommendations, one of which being that government should provide a "civil remedy for...

The director of the Alaska Human Rights Commission resigned Monday, three days after she was suspended for her actions involving a “Black Rifles Matter” sticker on a vehicle in the commission’s Anchorage parking lot. Marti Buscaglia, in a letter to commissioners, said she hoped her resignation would put the issue behind the agency.

Race was front and center on Wednesday night during a meeting coordinated to garner support for just one black candidate in Savannah’s mayoral election. With signs stating “Black press only” on the doors of the church where the meeting was held, white reporters were barred from entry, while black reporters for at least two television stations were permitted inside. The event was coordinated by the Rev. Clarence Teddy Williams, owner of the consulting firm, The Trigon Group, who declined to discuss the entry policy. Former Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson declined to comment before going inside, as did Chatham County Commissioner...

A scandal is developing in Alaska, as the head of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) has been implicated in directly chilling the exercise of the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution. Governor Dunleavy has ordered an investigation of the scandal. The head of the HRC, Marti Buscaglia, became upset over a bumper sticker on a contractor's work truck. The bumper sticker showed the silhouette of an AR15 type rifle, along with the words “Black Rifles Matter.”  It is a pretty standard call to support the Second Amendment. Brenton Linegar owns Sage Mechanical, the small plumbing and air conditioning...