Free Republic

A video uploaded to the internet's YouTube service appears to show a group of Syrian soldiers loyal to President Bashar Assad burying a man who is alive, as he pleads for mercy. The soldiers accused the man of carrying a camera in order to shoot video of Assad's forces and transfer the video to television networks. The men are seen standing around a hole that has been dug in the ground. The man is inside the hole and the soldiers are pointing their guns at him. One of the soldiers tells his commander: "Yes sir, we put him there as...

An unconscious South African man, presumed dead by relatives, had a rude awakening Sunday when he came to his senses in a morgue, officials said. His cries for help terrified employees at the mortuary in the Eastern Cape province of Libode. "Two workers heard screaming from the refrigerators," Sizwe Kupelo, a spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Health Department, told ABC News. "They thought it was a ghost and they ran for their lives." The man, who did not want his name released but is described as a grandfather in his 60s, had apparently suffered an asthma attack and fell unconscious....

Teenage girl buried alive in Turkey for talking to boys A 16-year-old girl has been buried alive by her relatives in Turkey as punishment for talking to boys, police have said. Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman. Her father and grandfather have since been arrested and are due to face trial over her death. Her mother was also charged but has since been released. Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from...

A Palestinian woman died after her father buried her alive claiming he wanted to preserve the "family honor." The father, in his seventies, turned himself in and admitted to killing his 24-year-old divorced daughter. After investigating the crime scene, the police discovered that the woman’s father had tied her arms and legs and muzzled her before burying her alive. According to press reports on Monday, the coroner was to examine the body to determine whether the woman was also beaten before her death. The police also detained four of the victim's brothers to investigate their involvement in the crime. Similar...

Excerpt - A Hamas militant died Sunday while digging an underground tunnel to be used in the Islamic group’s fight against Israel, Hamas said in a statement. The group did not identify the location of the tunnel. ~ snip ~

SADDAM Hussein's forces buried a Kurdish family alive in a mass grave in northern Iraq in the 1980s, a witness told the genocide trial of the ousted Iraqi leader today. The Kurdish woman, sitting to the left of the judges and speaking from behind a curtain to protect her identity, was the latest witness to give testimony about Saddam's 1988 Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign against the Kurds in northern Iraq. "I know the fate of my family. They were buried alive," she told the court through a translator. "I would like to ask Saddam a question: 'What was the...

Who abandoned 'Cecilia'? Saturday, April 16, 2005 The white cloth in the dirt caught the priest's eye.A spring sun was shining. His schedule was open, so the Rev. Michael Ward stepped from his rectory and headed across the courtyard to the winter-scarred garden by the side door of St. Cecilia's Roman Catholic Church in Kearny.It was only a few days before Easter Sunday, and Ward, the pastor of St. Cecilia's, wanted the new plantings arranged just right. Tulips here. Daffodils there.But what was this white cloth in the dirt?Ward bent over, reached out a hand, and pulled. "Then I saw...

No crime is more inconceivable, more horrific, than a parent killing his own small, innocent child. So the story from Illinois of a very evil man reportedly punching, then stabbing his 8-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old friend to death for going out on a Mother's Day bike ride past curfew chills the bones. Can we officially cringe when both the TV news business and Hollywood see this story and silently think, "Ka-ching"? Lisa Marie Presley is trying to make it as a pop-rock singer again by doing a dull carbon copy of the old Don Henley news-satire song "Dirty Laundry,"...

BRITISH troops were racing against time last night to free prisoners believed to have been buried alive by Saddam Hussein’s fleeing henchmen. Army engineers were called in after British officers heard scratching beneath a wrecked statue of Saddam in al-Faw. Local people said they had seen two coachloads of prisoners being sealed into a secret chamber under the site. Hundreds of Iraqis kept a vigil yesterday as engineers with pneumatic drills and a bulldozer worked to break through a yard of concrete believed to have been poured into a stairwell leading to the dungeon. Several British troops said they had...