Internanational Human Rights Court Affirms A Failure TO Protect
Mother’s File International Complaint Against United States, violation human rights of abused www.StopFamilyViolence.org MOTHERS FILE INTERNATIONAL COMPLAINT AGAINST UNITED STATES Mother's day complaint claims United States courts violate human rights of abused women and children. NEW YORK, On May 11, just before Mother's Day weekend, ten mothers, one victimized child, now an adult, leading national and state organizations filed a complaint against the United States with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The case claims that U.S. courts, by frequently awarding child custody to abusers and child molesters, has failed to protect the life, liberties, security and other human rights of abused mothers and their children. "For more than 30 years U.S. judges have given custody or unsupervised visitation of children to abusers and molesters putting the children directly at risk," says Dianne Post, an international attorney who authored the petition. "These horrendous human rights violations have been brought to the attention of family court systems, and state and federal governments, to no avail. We turn now to international courts to protect the rights and safety of US children." The complaint details several cases with ..ed medical evidence of child sexual abuse, yet in each instance the abusing father was given full custody of the children he abused. Several of the mothers were jailed by the courts because of their persistent efforts to protect their children from abuse, several were ordered not to speak of the abuse and not to report abuse to authorities. Every mother was denied contact with her child for some period of time though none was ever proven to have harmed them. "My life was completely shattered apart on that day and my childhood was destroyed," said Jeff Hoverson, the adult child petitioner, about the day a family court judge ordered sheriff deputies to deliver him into the custody of his abuser. "It was as if I was just kidnapped. I was torn from everything I knew....I was made into a possession rather than a child." Hoverson endured years of trauma and fear living in his father's home before escaping and returning to his mother at age 17. He is haunted by years of feeling helpless to prevent his father's night-time visits to his sisters' bedrooms. "The cases in this petition represent the proverbial tip of the iceberg," says Irene Weiser, executive director of the online organization Stop Family Violence. "We are contacted by an average of three protective mothers each week who have lost custody to child abusing fathers. This is a nationwide crisis of enormous proportion." "The lives of thousands of children and mothers have been irreparably harmed by family courts across our nation," says Joyanna Silberg, Ph.D., executive vice-president of The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence, another national organizations supporting the petition. "The years of trauma and psychological abuse because of the courts' failings result in lasting emotional damage to the children they are supposed to protect." Studies of gender bias in the courts, conducted in the 1980's and 90's, found disturbing trends of courts minimizing or excusing men's violence against women, and favoring the abusers. In 1990 the United States Congress passed a resolution recommending the prohibition of giving joint or sole custody to abusers. Seventeen years later, the practice continues unabated. Ten years ago today, leading national organizations were joined by members of Congress in a protest in Washington D.C. to again raise awareness about the problems in family courts. Today, petitioners say, the problem is systemic and widespread in family law courts across the nation. The petition seeks a finding from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the U.S. has violated the Declaration of the Rights and Responsibilities of Man and the Charter of the Organization of American States and a statement of the steps that the U.S. must take to comply with its human rights obligations in regards to battered women and children in child custody cases. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was created in 1959 and is expressly authorized to examine allegations of human rights violations by members of the Organization of American States, which include the United States. It also carries out on-site visits to observe the general human rights situations in all 35 member states of the Organization of American States and to investigate specific allegations of violations of Inter-American human rights treaties. Its charge is to promote the observance and the defense of human rights in the Americas. Dianne Post, a 1980 graduate of the University of Wisconsin law school, has worked on issues of gender based violence since 1976. In addition to private practice and legal aid, she has taught legal classes and been a consultant working or living in Russia, Cambodia, Hungary and some dozen other countries. She is currently in Vladivostok, Russia. In addition to The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence, other national organizations supporting the international lawsuit include: National Organization for Women and the NOW Foundation, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Justice For Children, National Family Court Watch Project, Legal Momentum, Family Violence Prevention Fund, National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence Report, Sidran Traumatic Stress Institute, and the National Center on Sexual and Domestic Violence. The petition is supported by many state organizations as well. In December 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition against the United States with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights for their failure to protect Jessica Gonzales' three children from their abusive father, who murdered them. Their petition, the first of its kind, asserted that domestic violence victims have the right to be protected by the state from the violent acts of their abusers. For additional information, contact: Irene Weiser, Stop Family Violence iw@stopfamilyviolence.org 607-539-6856 The petition and supporting ..action is available on the Stop Family Violence website on: www.StopFamilyViolence.org View the petition at: http://www.StopFamilyViolence.org/468
Tags: abuse, child, civil, constitutional, discrimination, domestic, human, rights, violence
Tags: abuse, abuses, child, civil, constitutional, discrimination, domestic, human, rights, violence
Back in 2004 a friend of mine was trying to convince one of our co-workers to vote in the upcoming elections but this co-worker didn’t really care too much for politics. He really didn’t want to spend too much of his time trying to figure out where each candidate stood on all of the issues. So my friend; being very concerned that all citizens do their duty by voting, suggested that he pick one issue that is the most important and find out which candidate shares his point of view.
http://religion.info/english/articles/article_385.shtml
Source: Religioscope
Author: Richard Cimino
While there have been allegations in the past of government investigation of mosques on issues relating to terrorism, the recent report, first featured in the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, is said to be the first confirmation that surveillance is taking place.
An article in the Los Angeles Times (May 29) reports that information about the alleged spying surfaced in a case about classified files concerning terrorism that were stolen from a secure office used by military and civilian law enforcement officials at Camp Pendleton. Some of these classified records referred to the surveillance of Muslim communities in Southern California, specifically, the Islamic Center of San Diego. The records alleged that the mosque had been monitored as part of a federal surveillance program targeting Muslim groups, according to the Union-Tribune article.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/07/10/muslim_profiling/index.html
Source: Salon
Author: Juan Cole
The U.S. Justice Department is considering a change in the grounds on which the FBI can investigate citizens and legal residents of the United States. Till now, DOJ guidelines have required the FBI to have some evidence of wrongdoing before it opens an investigation. The impending new rules, which would be implemented later this summer, allow bureau agents to establish a terrorist profile or pattern of behavior and attributes and, on the basis of that profile, start investigating an individual or group. Agents would be permitted to ask "open-ended questions" concerning the activities of Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans. A person's travel and occupation, as well as race or ethnicity, could be grounds for opening a national security investigation.
The rumored changes have provoked protests from Muslim American and Arab-American groups. The Council on American Islamic Relations, among the more effective lobbies for Muslim Americans' civil liberties, immediately denounced the plan, as did James Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute. Said Zogby, "There are millions of Americans who, under the reported new parameters, could become subject to arbitrary and subjective ethnic and religious profiling." Zogby, who noted that the Bush administration's history with profiling is not reassuring, warned that all Americans would suffer from a weakening of civil liberties.
http://atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/4016/32/
Source: Atlantic Free Press
Author: Stephen Lendman
Yassin Aref is a 37 year old Albany, New York resident and one of many Muslim victims of police state justice in post-9/11 America. They've been hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence and trumped-up charges, then incarcerated as political prisoners or deported to where they face possible arrest and torture.
Because of his faith and ethnicity, Aref was victimized by US "justice" in a post-9/11 climate of fear. He's an Iraqi Kurd who emigrated to the US as a UN refugee in 1999 with his wife and three young children. He's now in federal prison but committed no crime. He's also the author of a poignant memoir/autobiography titled "Son of Mountains: My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect." He wrote it in custody at Troy, New York's Rensselaer County Jail after his wrongful conviction in October 2006.
http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_C_muslim30.426eaa8.html
Source: Press-Enterprise
Author: Paige Austin
A civil-rights group and a coalition of Muslim activists headed by a Corona man called on Congress this week to investigate a report that military and law enforcement officials stole surveillance records of Southland Muslims from Camp Pendleton.
The request stems from a news report that military officials and law enforcement members of the Los Angeles County Terrorist Early Warning Group illegally took the top-secret documents from the base's Strategic Technical Operations Center.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz has been court-martialed and convicted for his role in the thefts.
While the details of the surveillance and the alleged theft remain largely unknown, the incident provides confirmation that the military and law enforcement groups have been gathering information about local Muslim communities, said Michael German, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office.
MIAMI, FL, 6/4/08) - On June 2, 2008, Florida Muslim leaders met with Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, at a Miami hearing to discuss Islamophobia and anti-Muslim discrimination.
For photos of the event: http://picasaweb.google.com/bedier/UNMiamiHearingOnRacism
Special Rapporteur Diène is visiting several cities across the United States to "gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia."
Reuters: U.N. racism investigator to visit U.S.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL16843098
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004444827_iraqgospel29.html
Source: McClatchy Newspapers
Author: Jamal Naji and Leila Fadel
At the western entrance to the Iraqi city of Fallujah on Tuesday, Muamar Anad handed his residence badge to the U.S. Marines guarding the city. They checked to be sure he was a city resident, and when they were done, Anad said, a Marine slipped a coin out of his pocket and put it in his hand.
Out of fear, he accepted it, Anad said. When he was inside the city, the college student said, he looked at one side of the coin. "Where will you spend eternity?" it asked.
He flipped it over, and on the other side it read, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16."
In our pursuit of protection of the minority from the tyranny of the majority , we have wrestled with the inequities of the Electoral College ( negating a majority popular vote ) , the two seats / state in the Senate that can sometimes frustrate popular will, and the delegate fiasco we are currently experiencing ( which honestly should not be happening -- the Democratic Party should be mortified over this development ).
The simplest thing that occurs to me might actually circumvent a lot of these problems while preserving minority protections as they are expressed in the voting habits of the populace.
Why not institute a party statute , and eventually a constitutional amendment that awards delegate selections and electoral college votes not on the basis of total population, but rather on the basis of VOTING population in the previous major election years?
It would preserve the notion of popular VOTE being dominant, while also giving a measure of anti-bully protection to the smaller states ( and delegations ). In essence, you could bulk up as much as you wished.
Imagine the levels of voter participation we would finally begin to experience in this country. There would be incentive to vote for all factions. It would TRULY make their vote meaningful, even if their candidate lost. Are we ever embarrassed that the supposed bastion of democracy in this world exhibits the lowest voter turnout of all ?
It wouldn't hurt to make voting a 2-day, weekend holiday process as well ( as in many European countries ). God knows we could do without another questionable national holiday in favor of a voting one.
It is my hope that those responsible for this site and information dissemination in the campaign would respectfully forward these ideas directly to Barack Obama for immediate consideration.
Finis / Andrew Tipton
I think it's funny that candidates campaigning that they know "how it works" are going after Barack about his "Present" votes. Here is the deal, and how this FURTHER shows Barack's principled stand on good government, and his deep commitment to good government above good politics.
Barack voted present 130 times among 4000+ votes. As he pointed out in the debate, the bill Hillary brought up on sex offenders is one HE SPONSORED. Well, WHY would he do that? WHY would you sponsor a bill and not vote for it? Is Barack a flip-flopper? NO. He believed the law was unconstitutional. The argument that "it hasn't been struck down yet" just exposes an "anything goes" attitude to politics and government.
WHY does it matter that Barack withheld support from a bill he sponsored, but when it came up for a vote believed to be unconstitutional? Because bills don't get struck down "just because." They get struck down when someone is convicted of the crime and challenges the constitutionality of the bill. WHAT happens if the bill is unconstitutional? The offender, who was convicted of the crime by a jury of his peers, and perhaps even had an appeal on the merits of his conviction turned down, IS SET FREE because the lawmakers didn't take the time to make sure they got it right.
His campaign summed it up perfectly. Barack "doesn't vote for a bad law because it's good politics."
Principles, people. Principles.
