Free Republic

A Turkish court on Wednesday sentenced Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, one of the country’s leading human rights advocates, to two-and-a-half years in jail for a 2016 Twitter post advocating peace. A former head of Mazlumdar, a prominent Turkish human rights group, Gergerlioglu was sentenced for “disseminating terrorist propaganda”, a charge he denies.The 53-year-old human rights activist was sentenced for a message he posted on Twitter on October 9, 2016, when he downloaded a photograph of a World Peace Day demonstration featuring Kurdish mothers protesting behind two symbolic coffins, one draped in the Turkish flag and the other in a Kurdistan Workers’...

The US-Turkey relations have become strained in the recent period due to the Turkish military intervention in Syria’s Afrin, an anti-Kurdish operation under the pretext of fighting terror – known as Operation Olive Branch. The US Congress is preparing sanctions against Turkey as part of the 2012 Magnitsky Act. The sanctions might target certain ministers and politicians of Turkey, Hurriyet reports. “The US government acknowledges that necessary means must be taken to stop Turkey, but at the same time the US tries to prevent the possible clash of the Turkish and American troops in the Syrian territory”, Hurriyet said. The...

Youtube video 22:55 minutes in length. Well organized, informative review of the 13 names listed on the Annex attached to President Trump's Executive Order dated December 21, 2018. The vlogger concludes by offering his opinion that the EO Annex appears to identify 13 individuals which serve to indirectly target Clinton (i.e., Clinton was the original target but Trump intentionally veiled his target with the names on the list).

So, I bet you’ve heard about the airline incident between a woman and Texas Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Katie wrote about it. In all, Jean-Marie Simon was booted from her first class seat on a United flight for Lee. Simon was obviously upset, voiced her objections, and was even threatened with being forced off the flight. She was eventually given a $500 voucher for her pre-paid seat and relocated to economy class. She alleges that United gave the Texas Democrat preferential treatment. The saga got even worse when Lee accused Simon of racism regarding this matter. I noted that this...

A few days ago president Trump issued an executive order to block the property of about 40 individuals and organizations involved in human trafficking. He accompanied this executive order with a national state of emergency. Several people from his list seem like pretty important individuals, like the former president of Gambia, the daughter of Uzbekistan, as well as a few well-respected billionaires. The post on Free Republic that mentioned this generated almost 450 comments. To me, that is proof this is a newsworthy enough story, yet the only news outlet that mention a peep about this is Politico. Why the...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Public Law 114-328) (the “Act”), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)) (INA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the prevalence and severity of human rights abuse and...

The Executive Order issued last week, targeting fraud and international corruption, is a who’s-who list of closely associated Clinton Foundation (CGI) donors. Yup, something definitely happening…

The world's worst crooks and killers should be running scared. The law and the executive order President Donald Trump issued make it much easier for the U.S. government to single out and punish egregious cases of abuse. Included in the list were Artem Chayka, the son of the prosecutor general of Russia; Gao Yan, a senior Chinese security official; and Maung Maung Soe, who oversaw Burmese military atrocities against ethnic Rohingya. "Today, the United States is taking a strong stand against human rights abuse and corruption globally by shutting these bad actors out of the U.S. financial system," Treasury Secretary...

Boston resident Aijalon M. Gomes, 38, captured international headlines in 2010 when he was imprisoned in North Korea for seven months; he died on Nov. 17 in San DiegoA man held captive in a North Korean prison in 2010 and freed with the help of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter died in San Diego over the weekend after being found ablaze in a field. Aijalon M. Gomes, 38, had recently relocated to San Diego from Boston. On Friday night, around 11:30 p.m., an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer was driving westbound on Pacific Highway near SeaWorld Drive when he spotted...

In the 1990s, I and my distinguished colleague Charlotte Ponticelli had the privilege of working with Dr. Clyde Snow, one of the world’s foremost experts in forensic anthropology, who played an instrumental role in bringing justice to Argentina by uncovering the mass graves left behind by the country’s “Dirty War.” His actions and investigation helped uncover the truth about what was an incredibly deadly series of crimes carried out over nearly a decade. Holding the regime in Argentina accountable set a valuable precedent and demonstrated the global community’s commitment to upholding justice and human rights, which must be maintained today....

CAIRO (Reuters) - Six Egyptian men arrested for “promoting sexual deviancy” and “debauchery” on social media will be subjected to anal examinations ahead of their Oct. 1 trial, Amnesty International said on Saturday. Their arrest is part of a wider crackdown against homosexuality that started last week when a group of people were seen raising a rainbow flag at a concert, a rare public show of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in the conservative Muslim country. At least 11 people have since been arrested, Amnesty said, and one man has been sentenced to six years in jail...

An environmental group is filing the first lawsuit of its kind on Sept. 26 in the U.S., attempting to force the state of Colorado to recognize the “legal rights” of the Colorado River and the surrounding ecosystem. Activist organization Deep Green Resistance (DGR) has signed on as the river’s “next friends” in Colorado River v. State of Colorado. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is a legal adviser in the case, according to a CELDF press release.

States speaking in the UN Human Rights Sessions criticized Turkey harshly and urged the country to end rights violations at once. United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council’s 36th Human Rights Sessions continued on the second day with discussions on the annual human rights report presented by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein yesterday. State and international NGO representatives spoke in the sessions and pointed out the scope of human rights violations in various parts of the world and stressed the need to prevent violations through international solidarity. Throughout the day, several states and NGOs speaking to...

The case was over the abduction of Dong-Shik, a South Korean who was a permanent resident of the US and had spent seven years providing aid and proselytizing to North Korean defectors. An Israeli NGO announced on Monday that a US federal court in Washington, DC has granted it a historic $330 million default award judgment against North Korea in a civil damages trial for wrongful death, torture and kidnapping. The judgment, only announced Monday, but written on April 9, included $15 million dollars each to the son and brother of Reverend Dong Shik Kim, presumed dead, as well as...

The Fusion GPS news-for-hire scandal has not only led to the public identification of the source of the “Trump Dossier”—a for-profit company that provides opposition research to whoever could write big checks, which is staffed by four former Wall Street Journal reporters led by Glenn Simpson. The scandal has also lifted the lid off a sewer of corporate information warfare and opposition research that the flailing institutions of the mainstream press now regularly re-package as news, without ever saying where it came from—or who paid for it. While the idea that the products of paid opposition research are being main-lined...

Trudeau is sending out the message that imams preaching death to Jews and gays and treating women as second class citizens is okay in his Canada. And it seems it is The Canadian Press has obtained a copy of a draft citizenship guide the Liberals are working on. These guides are used by people studying to pass their citizenship test. The last time the guide was updated was in 2011 under the Harper government. While some of the changes to the guide were expected based upon Trudeau’s criticism of the Tories’ guide, others were totally unexpected. When former Immigration Minister...

Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, who was China's most prominent human rights and democracy advocate, has died aged 61. The activist had been serving an 11-year prison term for "subversion" and was recently moved to a hospital for treatment for terminal liver cancer. A university professor turned tireless rights campaigner, Mr Liu was branded a criminal by authorities. The Nobel Committee said the Chinese government bore a "heavy responsibility for his premature death". The campaigner was repeatedly jailed throughout his life. When not in prison, he was subject to severe restrictions while his wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest.

Turkey's Human Rights Association deputy secretary general in charge of organisation stressed that the Turkish government detained human rights activists to hide the violations in the country. Turkish government detained human rights activists to hide the violations in Turkey, Human Rights Association’s (IHD) deputy secretary general in charge of organisation Necla Şengül said. Her remarks came after Turkish police arrested human rights activists in Istanbul, on July 5th. Idil Eser, Amnesty International’s director in Turkey in among the 11 activists arrested. “The arrested activists are leading experts in human rights. They were deliberately targeted by the government” Şengül said. Şengül...

Dallas proclaimed itself the first “human rights county” in Texas. The commissioners court embraced the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an initiative that claims to cultivate communities worldwide, although the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC) has come under fire for anti-Israel bias and member countries with poor records. “Human rights abuses occur in our community, our country, and our world every day,” said Democrat Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who pushed the resolution to a vote on July 5. “We must lead at the local level. We can’t do everything but we can all do something.” Democrat commissioners...

Press StatementHeather NauertDepartment Spokesperson Washington, DC July 6, 2017 The United States is deeply concerned by the July 5, detention of prominent human rights defenders from Amnesty International Turkey and other respected institutions. As with past arrests of prominent human rights defenders, journalists, academics, and activists, we underscore the importance of respecting due process and individual rights, as enshrined in the Turkish Constitution, and consistent with Turkey’s own international commitments. As we have expressed on numerous occasions, persistent curbs on freedom of expression erode the foundations of democratic society. More voices, not fewer, are necessary in challenging times.