Tag Archives: public

International, US

ISIS burns and destroys over 8,000 books in Mosul

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Militant members of ISIS have reportedly broken their way into the Mosul public library, where they burned an estimated 8,000 books, some of which were rare and historical manuscripts.

A bearded militant, according to CBS DC, told residents living near the library, “These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned.”

Ghanim al-Ta’an, the director of the public library, said the militants used an improvised explosive devices against the library with the hopes of destroying it, but when these efforts failed, the militants looted the books instead.

According to the Fiscal Times, the library housed many historical items and texts such as manuscripts written in the eighteenth century, books from the Ottoman era, and books printed in the nineteenth century in the first Iraqi printing house.

Militants are known to regularly burn books and manuscripts and destroy tombs and shrines of the cities and areas they have claimed as part of their caliphate. The militants also destroyed the church of Mary the Virgin and the Mosul University Theater on the same day, according to Breitbart.

A history professor at the University of Mosul spoke with the Lebanon Daily Star and said militants had started to destroy other public libraries in the area last month. Archives in a Sunni Muslim library, a library belonging to a 265-year-old Latin Church and Monastery of the Dominican Fathers, and works in the Mosul Museum Library were destroyed. Some of the works which were destroyed dated back to 5,000 B.C.

Rayan al-Hadidi, an activist and blogger in Mosul said, after the burning of the books from the library in Mosul, “900 years ago, the books of the Arab philosopher Averroes were collected before his eyes…and burned. One of his students started crying while witnessing the burning. Averroes told him… the ideas have wings…but I cry today over our situation.”

International

Man arrested in Saudi Arabia for filming the beheading of a woman

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The Saudi Arabian police have arrested the man who filmed the public beheading of a woman in the streets of Mecca.

The footage, according to the Independent, showed Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Bassim being dragged through the streets of Mecca before four police officers surrounded her in the street. A man in a white robe then steps forward with a curved sword and deals three blows to Bassim’s neck, severing her head from her body.

Bassim was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering her stepdaughter, according to Mediaite, but she claimed her innocence in the video up until the first sword blow met her neck.

“I did not kill. There is no God but God. I did not kill,” Bassim said while the police and executioner surrounded her. “This is injustice… I did not kill.”

After the public execution, the footage of the event was posted online by a human rights activist group in order to draw attention to the judicial system in place in the country. A UN investigation into the trials which have led to executions in Saudi Arabia called the trials “grossly unfair,” according to the Daily Mail.

Once the Saudi government saw the video online, an unnamed man was brought into custody, and a Saudi official told the New York Times, the man will face charges related to cyber-security.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), an organization based in Mecca, according to VICE News, said the dissemination of the footage is a crime and they want the person who filmed the execution punished.

“Those who disseminated the clip are not less guilty than those who filmed the execution,” said Mohammed Al Sahli, a member of the NSHR.

Other videos have been circulating online depicting public executions in Saudi Arabia. According to the Times of Israel, 10 people have been executed publicly this year already, while the number of public executions in 2014 was 87.

Featured, Images, International, Politics, US

The brutality of ISIS on full display in new photos

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Editor’s note: Google has found these images to be too graphic and warned that we could lose our advertising account. We have removed the images in question.

 

WARNING: The following images may be disturbing to some viewers.

The terrorist group known as ISIS has reportedly used brutal tactics in the past few months in order to claim and hold land in the Middle East, but a series of photos have been released showing the extent of how ISIS fighters punish law breakers in their controlled lands.

Among the photos are a few depicting an ISIS execution of two homosexual men by pushing them from a tall balcony. The pictures show a man being pushed onto a ledge, another of a man falling through the open air, and one of two bodies lying on the ground surrounded by pools of blood. As is evident in the pictures, these were public executions as a crowd had formed at the base of the balcony where the men were pushed.

Two blindfolded men are also showed crucified to wooden beams, while a man stands in front of them and a surrounding crowd and reads their crimes. According to the Daily Record, the men were accused of banditry. After their charges are read, two militants step up behind the crucified men and execute each with a single shot from their respective handguns.

Final, a set of images shows the execution by stoning of a woman. Her execution can be said to be less public as it appears to be taking place in a secluded, wooded area, but the brutality of her death via stoning is still on display.

Public executions have been reportedly taking place in all ISIS controlled areas since the group declared their lands the Caliphate, or Islamic State.

Charles Lister of the Brookings Institute’s Doha Center researched ISIS’ version of Sharia Law and published his findings under the title “Profiling the Islamic State.” In this research, Lister writes, “The implementation of a strict form of sharia law is clearly central to IS’s governance.” In this version of Sharia Law, serious punishments are dealt out to people who violate seemingly minute offenses such as listening to non-Islamic music or deviating from the assigned dress code implemented by ISIS.

Given ISIS’ penchant for a wide range of propaganda, these images and executions seem to serve multiple purposes. Not only are crimes being punished in these pictures, but the images may also be meant to scare people in and around ISIS controlled areas.  

Featured, Politics, US

Obama signs landmark legislation ending public funding of political conventions

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WASHINGTON, D.C., April 7, 2014– A day after the Supreme Court of the United States declined to limit federal campaign donations by upholding Citizens United, President Obama quietly signed into law new legislation that ended the public financing of presidential campaign conventions.

“It’s good news to the taxpayers of America that after something like three decades, we will not be using tax money to pay for the political conventions,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after the measure cleared the Senate last month. “For balloons and all of the rest that are part of a political convention, that ought to be paid for by willing donors, not by the taxpayers of the United States.”

The reason you didn’t hear about it? The name of the bill had nothing to do with campaign finance reform. The bill is called the The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, and the amendment ending the tax payer subsidy was quietly tucked away deep within the bill.

President Obama posed with the bill’s chief House sponsor, Rep Eric Cantor (R- Va.), and the family of Gabriella Miller, who died after being diagnosed with brain cancer at age nine.

Obama championed the bill “a wonderful way to remember a wonderful girl”, while never mentioning its related requirement to “terminate the entitlement of national committees of eligible political parties to payments from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund.”

Many have dissented that tax-payer funds should not be used to promote the two-party conventions every four years. However, they do have a choice. Every year when you file your taxes you are given the option to “donate” $3 to the presidential fund. This is where the money comes from.

The subsidy system provided $18 million to fund the Democrat an Republican national conventions in 2012. Third party conventions are not allowed direct access without clearing substantial hurdles.

Republican leadership say the funds will instead be used to conduct research on childhood illness.

Many oppose the bill. In fact, many Democrats were furious. House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- Calif.) voiced extreme opposition to the bill.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog, called the move a step in the wrong direction.

“It strengthens the hold of millionaire donors, corporations, trade groups and other special interests on our political parties and their candidates,” warned Common Cause president Miles Rapoport. “Those big donors will swoop in to cover convention expenses now absorbed by public funds, and they’ll extract all manner of special favors in return.”

How the RNC and DNC not being funded from tax-payer wallets diminishes the tax-payer’s voice in Washington isn’t exactly clear. The $3 “donation” gives the average tax-payer no more voice in Congress as they have today over the lobbyist who can walk straight into a U.S. Senator’s office anytime and has that Senator’s personal cell-phone on speed dial. Do you have your U.S. Senator’s cell-phone number because you checked a box on your tax return?

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