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Posts Tagged ‘Tunisia’

The authorities…seek to punish a preschool for being a place where there are preschoolers.  –  Lenore Skenazy

Droit du Seigneur

Note that the dysphemism “sex trafficking” is conspicuously absent here:

A [typical and representative] San Diego [cop] who used his badge and his knowledge to run a string of massage…parlors in California and Arizona pleaded guilty…to federal charges.  Peter Griffin and three other defendants entered pleas…to racketeering-related conspiracy, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and other crimes…The wire fraud charge carries a sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1-million fine…

Moloch 

Is this idiotic enough yet?  Can we stop now?

Two Colorado child care workers will go on trial this June for presiding over a day care center where a 5-year-old pulled down a 3-year-old’s pants.  Amy Lovato and Roberta Rodriguez…face criminal charges for not reporting this incident to the authorities quickly enough…Jason Flores-Williams, Lovato’s attorney…ask[ed the judge] to dismiss…charges….[which] “criminalize preschool behavior by turning a 5-year-old into a deviant and a 3-year-old into a victim for acts that are neither sexual, abusive, criminal, negligent, or against any reasonable person or community standard.”  Judge [Brian] Green denied the…motion…on January 16…one of the kids wet their pants, [so] Lovato left the classroom for between 3 and 5 minutes to clean the kid and deposit the wet clothes in the laundry.  When she returned, she saw the 5-year-old “crouched over” a 3-year-old who later told Lovato that the boy had tried to pull her pants down and touch her butt…The school did not ignore this misbehavior.  It called the parents involved…[and] reported the touching incidents to the child welfare department …[but the prosecutor claims they did] not report…the incidents immediately enough…three days later…[though] the question of how quickly a school must report an incident of abuse is vague.  So, it seems, is the definition of abuse.  And so is whether leaving the room to clean off a pee-soaked kid constitutes neglect…

I Can’t Breathe

It’s about time professionals stopped allowing themselves to be used to hide police violence:

A leading group of medical experts says the term “excited delirium” should not be listed as a cause of death…[because it is only] used to justify excessive force by police.  The National Association of Medical Examiners had been one of the last to take a stand against the commonly used but [unscientific] term…The statement has no legal weight, but will be influential among medical examiners…the term…[i]s unscientific, rooted in racism — and a way to hide police officers’ culpability in deaths.  The American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association do not recognize excited delirium as a diagnosis.  Yet…police training materials [think they have a right to invent convenient medical diagnoses that fly in the face of medical science]…Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., who chairs the pathology department at Howard University…[says] “It’s not a real explanation for the death”…

Quiet Genocide (#1075)

There was a time when the West might’ve taken a stand against this, but no more:

…the Kutadgu Bilik bookshop [in Istanbul] is a trove of Uyghur culture…[which has been repeatedly] raided by the Turkish police…[stealing] hundreds of books…[each] time…Uyghur literature has…been a prime target [of the Chinese genocide], with dozens of renowned writers, poets, publishers and academics disappeared into the labyrinthine system of [concentration] camps.  This has all but destroyed the small trickle of books coming out of the region, severing a critical link between those who escaped and those still trapped inside…Abdulla Turkistanli, the bookshop owner…said…there are usually only two to four copies of any given title in [his] shop.  The Turkish police, when they raid the shop, [use the pretext] that Turkistanli does not have the copyrights necessary to reprint [them, but]…acquiring the copyrights…is impossible without the cooperation of Chinese authorities.  Even contacting the authors…is impossible…[because] around 90% of the books in his shop were written by people who have been swallowed up by the prisons and re-education camps.  He believes that the Turkish police are acting under pressure from the Chinese state when they raid Uyghur bookshops…

Dangerous Speech (#1276)

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less’.

…Lacey and Larkin’s attorneys…argue…that the DOJ’s indictment and prosecution…of [their clients] and four others…is fatally flawed and should be dismissed…The motion points to the government’s stance…in…the Woodhull Freedom Foundation’s constitutional challenge to…FOSTA…which…[claims] the verbs “promote” and “facilitate”…are legal “terms of art” and do not have the same meanings as in everyday speech…[they] assert that the phrase “promote or facilitate” is the same as “aid and abet,” which requires proof that the defendant intended to facilitate the commission of a specific underlying criminal act — in this case, prostitution.  Meanwhile…in Arizona…prosecutors have consistently fought such an interpretation, arguing that “promote” and “facilitate” are much broader and open to various meanings…The defense…argues that the government should not be allowed to railroad Lacey and Larkin, using a broader legal standard…since the DOJ is simultaneously attempting to thwart a constitutional challenge on the other side of the country by insisting that the Travel Act should adhere to a far more stringent standard…

Monsters (#1288) 

All around the world, monsters claim the “right” to persecute and torture sexual minorities:

Human Rights Watch…accused Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Grindr of not doing enough to prevent violence against LGBTQ+ users by [cops] in…Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia…[the cops] sometimes publish…[their victims’] personal information on social media, leaving them subject to familial violence or homelessness.  Other [times they trick them]…in [order to]…unlawfully search…their personal devices, often under threat of violence…[in order to] collect…private information that’ll enable them to prosecute the [victim] and their [friends]…“When police…could not find [incriminating] information…they [simply]…fabricated chats to justify…detention”…detainees are jailed under vague, trumped-up “morality,” “debauchery,” “prostitution,” and “cybercrime” charges…they’re interrogated; denied access to lawyers, visitors, or medical care; verbally abused; subjected to forced anal examinations…sexually assaulted; tortured; and forced to sign confessions…

To Molest and Rape (#1326)

Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors:  “A Chicago [cop named David Deleon]…sexually abused a minor…[he was] report[ed to other cops by his victim]…

 

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It’s disheartening to see Twitter side with the police against researchers, journalists, and the public.  –  Emma Best

Pathologization

The abuses committed by the “therapeutic state” are rarely so blatant:

A 16-year-old boy [locked in] a Los Angeles County [cage stack] developed enlarged breasts after he was [forced to take] estrogen [against his will to make him docile]…a move that baffled doctors who said the [so-called] treatment defied medical logic…The teen…was [claimed to have “]oppositional defiant disorder[“, a label invented to medicalize teens’ natural resentment of being treated like children]…Medical records…show that the teen’s testosterone levels were “slightly high” when the doctor [assigned to control] him prescribed daily doses of estrogen…After taking approximately 13 daily doses of the hormone, the teen was diagnosed with gynecomastia…James McGough, a professor of clinical psychiatry at UCLA…[said]“You won’t find a reference anywhere that supports the use of estrogen for ODD”…The doctor who prescribed the estrogen, Danny Wang, [is being sued along with the county by the young man, who]…will require surgery to treat the [malformity]…Wang prescribed a daily regimen of 2 milligrams of estrogen…without the parents’ consent…

2 mg of estrogen is roughly 4x the typical amount taken for hormone replacement by post-menopausal women.

Lying Down With Dogs (#412)

What other country does this sound like?

In mid-June, Tunisian Islamic political party El-Karama launched an initiative to ban all forms of sex work in the country and penalise sex workers…[using the moronic excuse of] “the dignity of…woman”… “Political parties [used to] shun sex work issues. It’s a taboo subject,” says Souhaila Bensaid, founder of the Tunisian Association for Positive Prevention (ATP+) for sexual and reproductive health. But increased animosity against sex workers over the past decade has turned into “a moralistic crusade,” according to Bensaid, leaving women in increasingly precarious situations with little to no protection…

Censor Chic (#882)

Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors around the world:

Twitter has banned the account of the collective that published almost 270 gigabytes of leaked documents from police departments all over the country…Emma Best, the founder of Distributed Denial of Secrets…said that Twitter had taken down the official account of the DDoSecrets collective, which is made of activists, journalists, and technologists…when a Twitter user now clicks on a link that leads to the DDoSecrets’ site, it’s redirected to a warning that labels it as “unsafe”…“it’s disheartening to see Twitter side with the police against researchers, journalists, and the public”…[said] Best…

Forward and Backward (#894)

A prohibitionist attempt to destroy the Leeds red light district has been defeated:

The University of Huddersfield…[was] tasked…with investigating how effective the [Leeds] Managed Approach (MA) was, amid [attempts by] some [politicians to]…abandon…[it] altogether…the review concluded: “The MA was found to be more effective at reducing the impact of problems associated with on-street sex working than any other approach or model.  There are currently no alternative models or approaches that promise to be more effective and which fit within existing UK law on sex working”…[unfortunately NIMBY] residents [have] stag[ed] regular protests…[using the usual hackneyed claims of] littering and soliciting creeping into residential areas

The Cop Myth (#1004)

41% of cops admit to beating their wives. Some don’t stop with beating:

[A] Dover [New Hampshire cop named Ronald Letendre beat his wife] Sarah [so severely he broke four of her ribs, then had her arrested] and charged her with domestic violence [on him]…the…husband…is a[lso]…a…former MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter…[since] the incident…The…police are…con[tinuing to harass]…Sarah…stopp[ing] her vehicle [and trying to brutalize and re-arrest her on bullshit charges]…Fortunately [s]he…was [able to escape] and…ha[s] not yet [been tracked down by]…police…

The Mote and the Beam (#1016)

Hawley has a long history of spouting self-aggrandizing lies about sex workers:

When Missouri police raided several Springfield massage parlors in 2017, as…Josh Hawley…tells it, it was a righteous rescue mission led by a promising young attorney general who would later go on to become a rising Republican star in the U.S. Senate…While this tale nicely reinforces Hawley’s long-standing preoccupations with public morality  and Chinese hegemonythe evidence doesn’t back up his version of events.  The real story is one about police and prosecutor overreach at the expense of potentially vulnerable immigrants, followed by grandstanding and falsehoods from a senator intent on rewriting his own history.  Three years after the initial raids, Missouri has [only] managed to elicit six guilty pleas to misdemeanor offenses against the state’s massage licensing law…Hawley’s…raids…[were] largely based on…the fact that they all advertised on the now-seized classified ad site Backpage

Safe Position (#1042)

Under the current zeitgeist, Swedish model pushers are being increasingly seen as the copsuckers they are:

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz [lied during] her campaign [by] promis[ing] to end the criminalization of sex work…[in reality she is pursuing a Swedish criminalization strategy]…Amnesty International found in a study published in 2016, that [this] Model violate[s] the rights of sex workers by creating an atmosphere of fear built upon surveillance, evictions, and deportations…

Quiet Genocide (#1054)

Are Western media finally going to stop tiptoeing around calling this what it is?

Two recent disturbing events may finally awaken the world to the scale and horror of the atrocities being committed against the Uighurs…One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic sterilization of Uighur women.  The other was the seizure by U.S. Customs…of 13 tons of products made from human hair…forcibly removed from Uighurs imprisoned in concentration camps.  Both…evoke chilling parallels to past atrocities elsewhere, forced sterilization of minorities, disabled, and Indigenous people, and the image of the glass display of mountains of hair preserved at Auschwitz.  The Genocide Convention, to which China is a signatory, defines genocide as specific acts against members of a group with the intent to destroy that group in whole or in part.  These acts  include (a) killing; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm; (c) deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about the group’s physical destruction; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.  Any one of these…constitutes genocide.  The overwhelming evidence [is that] Chin[a’s]…campaign [against]…the Uighur people…meets [all] of the[m]…Over a million…Uighurs are…subjected to electrocution, waterboarding, repeated beatingsstress positions, and injections of unknown substances…The repeated government orders to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins”…demonstrate a clear intent to eradicate the Uighur people as a whole…

Disqualified

Twitter accidentally admitted what everyone already knew:

[Last week]s hack of a large number of prominent Twitter accounts — which led to the company’s disabling of…verified…accounts for part of the day — also resulted in the unexpected confirmation of the practice known by users as “shadowbanning,” and by Twitter as “blacklisting”…the secret re-categorization of certain Twitter accounts, without the knowledge of the affected user or their followers, so that they do not show up in searches, predictive auto-complete fields or trending topics.  Even though…companies like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have in the past denied knowing what “shadowbanning” meant, large numbers of sex workers…are verifiably victims of this…practice…a…Motherboard article…[showed] a screencapture from Twitter’s back-end reveal[ing] some accounts labeled under “Trends Blacklist” and “Search Blacklist”…[reporter Samantha] Cole explained…“A Twitter spokesperson told Motherboard on the phone that these blacklists are the same ones it explained in 2018 (though it didn’t use the term ‘blacklist’ at the time and has not used that word publicly)”…

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