Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, Cleveland kidnapping captive Michelle Knight

- Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, and Abroad: An Eyewitness Comes Forward and Names her Torturers
- Cleveland kidnappings: Was Ariel Castro record of abuse a red flag?
- Cleveland captive Michelle Knight was gang-raped while in junior high
Michelle Knight bore a child as a result of the sex attack, which happened roughly a year before she was abducted in August 2002
- Cleveland captive Michelle Knight leaves hospital without telling family

Child Sacrifice and Trafficking in Holland, and Abroad: An Eyewitness Comes Forward and Names her Torturers
(ZWOLLE, Holland) – A survivor of a high-level ring involving child sacrifice, torture and trafficking went public today in an exclusive disclosure and interview with Freedom Central’s Mel Ve and ITCCS Field Secretary Kevin Annett. May-08-2013

Toos Nijenhuis, a fifty four year old physiotherapist and mother of five from Holland, was tortured, raped and used experimentally from the age of four years old by wealthy and powerful men around the world, including top officials of churches and governments.

And, Nijenhuis claims, these crimes are continuing today, including the ritual sacrifice of children in rural Holland.

On May 7, Ms. Nijenhuis accompanied Kevin Annett, Mel Ve and other investigators to a forested site near to Zwolle where such child murders took place as recently as November, 2010, according to Ms. Nijenhuis….

These assaults occurred in Holland, Scotland, and a military experimental base in Melbourne, Australia, where Toos was subjected to what appears to be pain threshold and behaviour modification experiments. She also witnessed the torture and murder of other children.

Key excerpts from the interview and statement of Toos Nijenhuis are found in this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyrPEu7nk1Q

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may082013/holland-child-ring.php

Cleveland kidnappings: Was Ariel Castro record of abuse a red flag? (+video)
What if Ariel Castro’s past record of domestic violence had resulted in legal action? Could it have led authorities to discover that he was holding three women in his house? Could it have prevented the kidnappings from occurring?

By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer May 11, 2013

What if Ariel Castro’s past record of alleged domestic violence had resulted in legal action against him?

Could it have led authorities to discover sooner that the Cleveland man was holding three kidnapped women in his house? Could it have even prevented the kidnappings from occurring?

Those questions are emerging after details have surfaced that the Ohio kidnapping suspect had several run-ins with the law regarding alleged domestic violence.

The incidents involved the woman, Grimilda Figueroa, with whom Mr. Castro fathered four children.

Now Castro has been arrested and stands accused of kidnapping and abusing three other women and keeping them locked in his house since 2002, 2003, and 2004 respectively.

The Reuters news agency reported Saturday that Ms. Figueroa’s accusations against Castro began as early as 1989 and spanned through 2005. The most recent case involved a request by her for a court order of protection….
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/0511/Cleveland-kidnappings-Was-Ariel-Castro-record-of-abuse-a-red-flag-video

Cleveland captive Michelle Knight was gang-raped while in junior high 
Michelle Knight bore a child as a result of the sex attack, which happened roughly a year before she was abducted in August 2002 By Rich Schapiro AND Corky Siemaszko  NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, May 9, 2013

Michelle Knight went through hell even before she was kidnapped off a Cleveland street and imprisoned as a sex slave for nearly 11 harrowing years.

A year before her August 2002 disappearance, Knight was gang-raped while in junior high school and bore a child as a result of the ordeal, her great-aunt said Thursday. The boy, who she named Joey, was later taken from her and placed in foster care.

“She was a delightful girl, outgoing,” Deborah Knight, 62, told the Daily News. “She was very helpful. We just had a lot of fun together.”

But all that changed when three classmates “grabbed her by the arm and raped her at the school,” the great-aunt said. “That’s how she had Joey.”

Then, when Knight was at her lowest, Ariel Castro slithered into her life, police say.

Her abduction, imprisonment and rape — all at Castro’s hands, police say — ended on Monday, when she and two other women — escaped from Castro’s house of horrors on Seymour Ave. in Cleveland. Also liberated was a 6-year-old girl born to one of Knight’s two fellow captives. Knight, now 32, was forced to serve as a midwife during the delivery….

While fellow captives Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were quickly reunited with their families, it took police several hours to track down Michelle Knight’s twin brother, Freddie, the first member of her family police were able to reach.

Freddie Knight — who in earlier interviews said he wasn’t even aware his sister had been kidnapped because he was kicked out of the family’s home at age 14 — said “she looked white as a ghost.”

Michelle Knight suffered several miscarriages while imprisoned and lived in darkness for long stretches of her confinement.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cleveland-abduction-vic-gang-raped-jr-high-article-1.1339798

Cleveland captive Michelle Knight leaves hospital without telling family
After one visit with her mother, Barbara Knight, the hospital says the daughter refused to see visitors, including close family members.

By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, May 11, 2013

Kidnapping victim Michelle Knight slipped away from the hospital without seeing her family — upsetting and confusing her mother.

“Michelle Knight has been discharged from MetroHealth. She is asking for her privacy at this time,” MetroHealth Hospital said in a statement Friday.

Earlier that day, the hospital released a statement saying that Knight, now 32, is in good spirits and grateful for flowers and gifts from well-wishers. They added that she is particularly thankful for the Cleveland Courage Fund….

Michelle Knight’s grandmother, Deborah Knight, told local station WOIO-TV that Knight the young woman’s face had been beaten so severely that she might need to undergo facial reconstruction surgery.

Knight, the first of the three victims, was likely subjected to additional physical abuse at the age of 20 — before Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry joined her in the home on Seymour Ave. in Cleveland.

Large awareness campaigns were launched to find Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, the other victims, but Knight’s case was largely dismissed as a runaway case. She was removed from the FBI’s list of missing people after 15 months.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cleveland-captive-knight-avoids-public-family-article-1.1341364

Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Child Abuse May 2013 Conference – Survivors Moving Forward

Survivorship Ritual Abuse and Child Abuse 2013 Conference – Survivors Moving Forward

copied with permission

Please see our conference website at http://survivorship.org/2013conference.html
for updated speaker information.

Two days of survivor and professional workshops, a safe room, great price, good food, safe environment, a chance to mingle with others who share your experience, join together in this unique opportunity to bring the movement forward…

On May 4 – 5, 2013
Survivorship will hold a conference at
Executive Inn & Suite
1755 Embaracadero
Oakland, CA 94606

Survivorship

Survivorship is one of the oldest and most respected organizations supporting survivors of extreme child abuse, including sadistic sexual abuse, ritualistic abuse, mind control, and torture.

Survivorship provides resources, healing, and Survivorship community for survivors; training and education for professionals who may serve survivors; and support for survivors’ partners and other allies. The organization functions as a lifeline for survivors who may be isolated emotionally or geographically. Through community outreach and training, Survivorship also raises awareness about these difficult issues.

The purpose of the conference will be to help survivors of ritual abuse and their allies. The conference will be for survivors, cosurvivors, helping professionals and others interested in this topic.

This year our keynote speaker is Steve Frankel.

Steve Frankel is a Board Certified Clinical and Forensic Psychologist and an Attorney at Law, who practices both professions in San Francisco’s East Bay.  A Clinical Prof. of Psychology at USC, he began recognizing childhood trauma in his adult patient case-load in 1980 and has specialized in working with that population ever since.  He joined the Int’l. Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation in the 1990s and was the consultant to the Trauma Program at Del Amo Hospital from 1993 until 2001.  He was President of the ISSTD in 2002 and has been active in developing and teaching courses in trauma treatment as well as publishing chapters in books and professional journals in the trauma field.

His presentation is:
“Validation: science is (finally!) catching up to what survivors and clinicians have known for years.”

More Speakers:

Dr Ellen Lacter will be presenting:
Therapists Reporting Histories of Ritual Abuse Trauma: Preliminary Results on Beneficial and Detrimental Treatment Approaches
Highlights of the pilot findings of this ongoing study will be presented, including: (a) responding to a client’s first report or memory, (b) making programming conscious, working with programmed triggers and suicidality, and resolution of programming, (c) working with ongoing victimization, and (d) the place of spirituality in therapy and  healing.

Dr. Deborah Brenner-Liss will talk about “Trauma and Eating Disorders.”
Trauma happens to the body (as well, of course, as to mind and spirit).  The feelings that one ends up holding in one’s body, before words, and/or beyond words, often affect how one feels in one’s body.  The affects and toxicity from the perpetrator’s “energy” as well their as invasion(s) and intrusion(s) get lodged in the body.  This talk looks at the intersection between trauma and manifestations of eating disorder symptoms as attempts to self-regulate in the face of overwhelming trauma, overwhelming invasion, overwhelming violation of bodily boundaries.  The talk looks to address how recovery can occur, in the body-self, so as to lessen the need to utilize eating disorder symptoms in the service of this self-regulation.

Melisa Noel – The Natural Reassociation Method: Launching the Recovery Process for RA/MC/Torture Survivors and Their Allies. This workshop introduces the principles, benefits and paradigm shifts offered by the Natural Reassociation Method (NRM), a new approach to RA/MC recovery that capitalizes on our innate healing capacities. NRM is transforming how survivors and support persons view and experience recovery, while also improving results and sustainability for many.

Arauna Morgan, MA will discuss “Steps to getting Free and the Signs that you are there.” The road to freedom from the cult is long and arduous, but well worth the struggle. Through my own experiences of getting free and through talking with other survivors who have done the same, I find that there are similar stages that we all went through, even though our personal experiences were quite different. One significant barrier that stands out to me, for both therapists and survivors, is thinking that cult contact has stopped when it has only gone to a different level. What I present are the steps to recovery and what those stages look like to friends and therapists and the external changes that happen when freedom is achieved. This is geared for survivors and therapists.

Ani Rose Whalesman  will present an in-depth look at a WHOLE-FIRST approach for healing work. The WHOLE-FIRST approach assumes that the relationship is where things happen, and equality exists. She will discuss Gifts and Skills from Original Wholeness embraced in an Integral Relationship. In this workshop, we’ll look at 20 plus skills involved in surviving severe trauma, This presentation includes tools for support people to connect more deeply with survivors.

Joyce Aubrey, MS. will discuss “Survivor Aftershock, Art & Advocacy”
She will present a Power Point of personal paintings created during my healing crisis of flashbacks to more than a decade of incest, gang rape, and family trafficking. Her painted images will show challenges commonly faced by survivors of extreme abuse. They will be a springboard for talking about overcoming obstacles and embracing empowerment. This is meant to inspire survivors of extremely traumatic sexual violence (and those who work with them) that healing to a new normal is possible and worth the effort and to model the strength available from working as a survivor advocate.

Sandra will speak about “What I Have Learned So Far.”  With caring and believe it or not at times appropriate humour,  the profound and subtle influences of RA are highlighted. Steps to bring awareness to the impact of and treatment methods for RA are offered.

Carmen Holiday will present “Connections.” She will connect some dots between the occult, Nazis, and the CIA. A contextual understanding of what happened to RA/MC survivors can be a critical factor  in the defense against detractors of personal histories and the RA/MC movement’s integrity, and can play a pivotal role in healing. Knowledge is power.

Dave Staffen will talk about  “‘So We’ve Been Betrayed and  Satanically Ritually Abused by Those We Loved…..Now What Do We Do?”   I intend for my talk to help victims recontextualize what happened to  them, so they can look at their life and and their experiences in a different way. I am hoping to convey hope, courage and a sense of purpose; that what happened was not an accident. The feeling that  when we are dealt lemons we open a lemonade stand. I will discuss the  various stages I went through in my experience and how it transformed  me from the person I was before discovering my truth, to the person  who today wants to help victims, create awareness of Ritual Abuse and  awareness of how Ritual Abuse causes Mental Illness.

Sarah Jacqueline will speak about: Exposing Satanic Abuse and The Hope of Healing.  I will speak about my 15 year healing journey through memories of satanic abuse. How I can now live as hope, peace, and happiness. I have come to a freeing conclusion that it was an “illusion” that the satanists attempted to program through me about suffering, pain, and hatred. I now know and feel I am just love and anything other than this is illusion–this I speak about.

Additional discussions :

Shipmates – Discussion for Partners and Supporters of Survivors

Survivor panel – “What does it look like to move forward as a survivor with dissociation?”

Survivorship 2013 conference application for attendees:

To receive the application form please contact us either by e-mail: conference2013reg@survivorship.org
or postal mail:

Survivorship
Family Justice Center
470 27th Street
Oakland, CA 94612 USA

Please wait for acknowledgment from Survivorship before submitting your payment.
Survivorship reserves the right to limit attendance to protect the safety and security of the conference participants.

Cost of conference:

Low income: $100 for both days/$50 for one day
Regular participant: $175 for both days/$100 for one day
Professional participant: $225 for both days/$125 for one day.

To cosponsor this conference email: conference2013cosp@survivorship.org

To link directly to this page: http://survivorship.org/2013conference.html

In order to protect the health of conference attendees with environmental illness, please do not wear fragranced products (including “natural” fragrances) or clothes laundered in fragranced products to the Survivorship conference. Thank you.

Our Conference Co-sponsors include BAWAR, deJoly LaBrier, The North American Truth & Reconciliation Coalition (NATRC),  S.M.A.R.T., Christina Arguello, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the California Protective Parents Association.

History of Survivorship, Suffer the Children – Father Ratigan and Bishop Finn

History of Survivorship and its Present Day Activities – 2012 conference transcript

Survivorship Presentation

Survivorship is an international non-profit organization for survivors of sadistic sexual abuse, ritualistic abuse, mind control, and torture. A history of Survivorship’s last twenty plus years of work helping survivors will be presented with interviews from members of Survivorship. The presentation will include Survivorship’s present day activities and ways survivors can learn more about the organization and get involved. Survivorship, FJC,470 27th St., Oakland, Ca 94612 survivorshipstaff@yahoo.com http://www.survivorship.org

http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2012-conference/the-history-of-survivorship-and-its-present-day-activities/

Suffer the Children By FRANK BRUNI Op-Ed Columnist September 10, 2012

Just how flagrant does a pedophile need to be before the people around him contact the police? Just how far beyond seeming to force himself on a boy in a shower or loading up his laptop with photos of little girls’ crotches does he have to go?

In the first instance I’m referring to Jerry Sandusky, whom Penn State officials allowed to continue working with children even after they were told that something was seriously amiss. In the second I’m referring to the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, a Catholic priest in Missouri whose superiors acted no less despicably.

In May 2010, the principal of a parochial school next door to the parish where Father Ratigan served sent a memorandum to the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, as Laurie Goodstein reported in The Times. It flagged his odd behavior, including his habit of instructing children to reach into his pockets for candy. In December 2010, hundreds of troubling, furtively taken photographs were found on his laptop, according to court testimony given too long after that fact. One showed a toddler’s genitals. In what jail or prison cell, you might ask, did Father Ratigan spend the first half of 2011? None.

After the photos were discovered, he attempted suicide, received counseling and was reassigned by Bishop Robert W. Finn, the head of the diocese, to a new post as a chaplain to an order of nuns. There he was allowed to celebrate Mass for youth groups and host an Easter egg hunt, and he was caught taking a photograph under the table, up the skirt of the daughter of parishioners who had invited him into their home.

In May 2011, a diocesan official finally told police about the extent of Father Ratigan’s cache of child pornography. He was convicted of possession of it last month. And last week Bishop Finn was convicted of failing to report him to law enforcement authorities, and got two years of probation….

The Boy Scouts of America covered up sexual abuse in its ranks. A recent Los Angeles Times review of files dating from 1970 to 1991 identified more than 125 cases of alleged molestation by men whom the organization had previously had reason to suspect of abusive behavior. “In some cases,” The Times noted, “officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place.” In others, it failed to involve the police.

Over the last two decades the Catholic Church has spelled out stricter policies, including the prompt notification of law enforcement officials. And its defenders have complained that newly revealed instances of wrongdoing are usually old cases that predated better awareness of child sexual abuse, better education about it and a toughened resolve.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/bruni-suffer-the-children.html

MK-ULTRA Violence Or, how McGill pioneered psychological torture

MK-ULTRA Violence Or, how McGill pioneered psychological torture

Features | September 6th, 2012  Written by Juan Camilo Velasquez

Today, many journalists, doctors, and the general public see the Allan Memorial Institute in Royal Victoria Hospital as the cradle of modern torture, a cradle built and rocked by Scottish-born Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron. To the patients of Dr. Ewen Cameron, our university was the site of months of seemingly unending torture disguised as medical experimentation –– an experimentation that destroyed their lives and changed the course of psychological torture forever.

Cameron’s experiments, known as MK-ULTRA subproject 68, were partially funded by the CIA and the Canadian government, and are widely known for their use of LSD, barbiturates, and amphetamines on patients. In the media, they were known as the “mind control” studies done at McGill and were reported as a brainwashing conspiracy from the CIA and the Canadian government….

This story begins on June 1, 1951 at a secret meeting in the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Sherbrooke. The purpose of the meeting was to launch a joint American-British-Canadian effort led by the CIA to fund studies on sensory deprivation. In attendance was Dr. Donald Hebb, then director of psychology at McGill University, who received a grant of $10,000 to study sensory deprivation. It would be fifteen years after this meeting at the Ritz that Cameron would disastrously pick up where Hebb left off.

Dr. Hebb paid a group of his own psychology students to remain isolated in a room, deprived of all senses, for an entire day. In an attempt to determine a link between sensory deprivation and the vulnerability of cognitive ability, Hebb also played recordings of voices expressing creationist or generally anti-scientific sentiments – clearly, ideas psychology students would oppose. However, the prolonged period of sensory deprivation made the students overly susceptible to sensory stimulation. Students suddenly became very tolerant of the ideas that they had readily dismissed before. As a history professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Alfred McCoy described in his book, A Question of Torture, that during Hebb’s own experiments “the subject’s very identity had begun to disintegrate.” One can only fathom the cognitive effects of Hebb’s work….

MK-ULTRA Subproject 68

Cameron’s research was based on the ideas of “re-patterning” and “re-mothering” the human mind. He believed that mental illness was a consequence of an individual having learned “incorrect” ways of responding to the world. These “learned responses” created “brain pathways” that led to repetitive abnormal behaviour.

Dr. Cameron wanted to de-pattern patients’ minds with the application of highly disruptive electroshock twice a day, as opposed to the norm of three times a week. According to him, this would break all incorrect brain pathways, thus de-patterning the mind. Some call it brainwashing; Cameron called it re-patterning….

Step 1: To prepare them for the de-patterning treatment, patients would be put into a state of prolonged sleep for about ten days using various drugs, after which they experienced an invasive electroshock therapy that lasted for about 15 days. But patients were not always prepared for re-patterning and sometimes Cameron used extreme forms of sensory deprivation as well….

Step 2: Following the preparation period and the de-patterning came the process of “psychic driving” or re-patterning, in which Cameron would play messages on tape recorders to his patients. He alternated negative messages about the patients’ lives and personalities with positive ones; these messages could be repeated up to half a million times….

The experiments done at McGill were part of the larger MK-ULTRA project led by Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA. In 1963, the year in which MK-ULTRA ended, the CIA compiled all the research into a torture manual called the Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation Handbook. Yes, a “torture manual” that would eventually define the agency’s interrogation methods and training programs throughout the developing world….

Following 9/11, the war on terror and the generalized fearmongering that ensued, the Bush administration changed the rules of the game out of concern for homeland security. Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved special practices that included the “use of isolation facility for up to thirty days.” All of a sudden, the U.S. allowed the use of torture methods developed just up University….

Only decades later, in the 1980s, did past victims speak about their experiences, and by the nineties, the lawsuits began to pile up. In response, the Canadian government launched “The Allan Memorial Institute Depatterned Persons Assistance Plan,” which provided $100,000 to each of the former patients of Dr. Ewen Cameron. The compensation came from a recommendation by lawyer George Cooper, in which he clarified that the Canadian government did not have a legal responsibility for what happened, but a moral responsibility.
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2012/09/mk-ultraviolence/

Candace Conti Awarded $28M In Jehovah’s Witness Sex Abuse Case, In the Stillness: A Spiritual Response to Ritual Abuse by Cath C.

Candace Conti Awarded $28M In Jehovah’s Witness Sex Abuse Case 06/16/12 AP

OAKLAND, Calif. — A Northern California jury has awarded $28 million in damages to a woman who said the Jehovah’s Witnesses allowed an adult member of a Fremont church to molest her when she was a child in the mid-1990s.

Alameda County jurors awarded $7 million in compensatory damages on Wednesday and another $21 million in punitive damages on Thursday to Candace Conti, her attorney, Rick Simons said.

“This is the largest jury verdict for a single victim in a religious child abuse case in the country,” Simons told The Associated Press.

In her lawsuit, Conti, now 26, said from 1995-1996, when she was 9 and 10 years old and a member of the North Fremont Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she was repeatedly molested by a fellow congregant, Jonathan Kendrick….

Conti also claimed in her suit that the religion’s national leaders formed a policy in 1989 that instructed the religion’s elders to keep child sex abuse accusations secret. Congregation elders followed that policy when Kendrick was convicted in 1994 of misdemeanor child molestation in Alameda County, according to Simons.

Kendrick was never criminally charged in the case involving Conti, but besides the 1994 conviction, he was later convicted in 2004 of lewd or lascivious acts with a child, records show….

Jim McCabe, an attorney for the congregation, said he planned to appeal the jury’s decision.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/calif-jury-awards-28m-in-_n_1602997.html

In the Stillness: A Spiritual Response to Ritual Abuse by Cath C. follows the life of educator Barbara B. in her recovery from ritual abuse torture. Born into a family that practiced satanism, torture, and sacrificial ritual, Barbara’s story illustrates four aspects of ritual abuse: the practice of mind control in ritual families, ritual desecration, the hardship and peril of escape, and the lasting impact of sexual exploitation.

Barbara’s recovery as an adult shows how each aspect of the evil was answered by and, ultimately, rendered ineffective through spirituality. Barbara shares what she did to achieve mental and physical wellness, spiritual strength, a productive career, and a satisfying personal life. In the Stillness: A Spiritual Response to Ritual Abuse offers hope to other survivors.  ISBN 9781477567883
http://web.me.com/katecollier/Stillness/Welcome.html

Satanic Ritual Abuse Exists – Resources & Links for Survivors

Satanic Ritual Abuse Exists – Resources & Links for Survivors

The purpose of this website is to help stop ritual abuse by sharing information, links, and resources.

Ritual abuse is an extreme sadistic form of abuse of children and non-consenting adults. It is methodical, systematic sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse, which often includes mind control, torture, and highly illegal and immoral activities such as murder, child pornography and prostitution. The abuse is justified by a religious or political ideology.
http://ritualabuse.ca

Exclusive: Senate probe finds little evidence of effective “torture”

Exclusive: Senate probe finds little evidence of effective “torture”
By Mark Hosenball Reuters 4/28/12

A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh “enhanced interrogation techniques” the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.

People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.

The backers of such techniques, which include “water-boarding,” sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al Qaeda leaders….

Other coercive techniques included sleep deprivation, making people crouch or stretch in stressful positions and slamming detainees against a flexible wall.

The CIA started backing away from such techniques in 2004. Obama banned them shortly after taking office….
http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-senate-probe-finds-little-evidence-effective-torture-051456121.html

Church’s Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group, SNAP petition, Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman

articles
- Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group
- Cardinal Dolan – “Stop the legal bullying!” – SNAP Petition
- Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules

Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
March 12, 2012

Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.

The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.

The network and its allies say the legal action is part of a campaign by the church to cripple an organization that has been the most visible defender of victims, and a relentless adversary, for more than two decades. “If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes, “it definitely would be SNAP. And that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.”

Lawyers for the church and priests say they cannot comment because of a judge’s order. But William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

Mr. Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group: “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”

He said bishops were also rethinking their approach of paying large settlements to groups of victims. “The church has been too quick to write a check, and I think they’ve realized it would be a lot less expensive in the long run if we fought them one by one,” Mr. Donohue said.

However, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, said Mr. Donohue was incorrect.

“There is no national strategy,” she said, and there was no meeting where legal counsel for the bishops decided to get more aggressive….

Mr. Clohessy was deposed in January by lawyers for five accused priests and the diocese. In the 215-page transcript, made public on March 2, most of the questions were not about the case but about the network — its budget, board of directors, staff members, donors and operating procedures.

Mr. Clohessy testified that he had never had contact with John Doe.

“It was not a fishing expedition,” Mr. Clohessy said. “It was a fishing, crabbing, shrimping, trash-collecting, draining the pond expedition. The real motive is to harass and discredit and bankrupt SNAP, while discouraging victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers, police, prosecutors and journalists from seeking our help.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/catholic-church-pressures-victims-network-with-subpoenas.html

Cardinal Dolan – “Stop the legal bullying!”
As the head of America’ bishops, we urge you to publicly denounce, and stop, the bullying tactics used by bishops and church defense lawyers against those seeking help from the support group SNAP, including victims of abuse by clerics, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors and journalists. http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_petition

Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules

UN special rapporteur on torture’s findings likely to reignite criticism of US government’s treatment of WikiLeaks suspect

Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 March 2012 09.41 EDT

The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.

Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier’s arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.

“The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence,” Mendez writes.

The findings of cruel and inhuman treatment are published as an addendum to the special rapporteur’s report to the UN general assembly on the promotion and protection of human rights. They are likely to reignite criticism of the US government’s harsh treatment of Manning ahead of his court martial later this year…..

The Pentagon has refused to allow Mendez to see Manning in private, insisting that all conversations must be monitored. “You should have no expectation of privacy in your communications with Private Manning,” the Pentagon wrote.

The lack of privacy is a violation of human rights procedures, the UN says, and considered unacceptable by the UN special rapporteur. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un

Ritual abuse of children: a hidden and under-reported crime

Ritual abuse of children: a hidden and under-reported crime

Police in London have a special unit to probe this type of crime but believe they have only scratched the surface
Sandra Laville, crime correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 March 2012

Witchcraft-based abuse first came to national consciousness with the murder 12 years ago of Victoria Climbié by her guardians. After her death it emerged that the police and other authorities had missed several opportunities to step in and save the eight-year-old. Her death led to a public inquiry and produced major changes in child protection policies in England.

Since Climbié’s murder, agencies have learned a great deal more about the ritualised abuse and torture of children. But figures collated by the Metropolitan police merely scratch the surface, detectives believe, of a hidden crime that is still under-reported.

In the past 10 years police in greater London have investigated 83 incidents of child abuse and torture linked to witchcraft and other religious rituals. Of these children, four – including Kristy Bamu – were murdered during ritualised violence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/01/witchcraft-ritual-abuse-hidden-crime

Miramonte teacher paid to drop charges, Gacy had accomplices – lawyers say, West Memphis 3 judge speaks, Healing from Trauma

articles:
- Miramonte teacher was paid $40,000 to drop dismissal challenge
- Serial killer John Wayne Gacy had accomplices, lawyers say
- West Memphis 3 judge speaks after 18 years
- Wellspring of Compassion- Self-Care for Sensitive People Healing from Trauma

Miramonte teacher was paid $40,000 to drop dismissal challenge

LAUSD says it paid Mark Berndt to settle his challenge because it was blocked from investigating and defending its firing of the Miramonte Elementary teacher accused of sexually abusing students.
By Howard Blume, Angel Jennings and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times

February 10, 2012
The Los Angeles Unified School District paid Mark Berndt, the teacher at the center of the Miramonte Elementary child abuse scandal, $40,000 to drop the challenge to his dismissal last year.

The payout consisted of four months of back salary plus reimbursement for the cost of health benefits. Berndt was fired by the Board of Education in February 2011 after officials learned that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was investigating him for alleged lewd acts against students. He was arrested last week.

The firing took Berndt off the district payroll. But he fought to keep his job through an appeal process that lasted until he settled with the school system and resigned in June.

The settlement with Berndt came in the face of a dilemma, said L.A. Unified general counsel David Holmquist. A hearing on the dismissal was pending and the district didn’t have evidence to justify the firing because the Sheriff’s Department investigation was ongoing….

Berndt was charged last week with 23 counts of lewd conduct against children; another teacher, Martin Springer, was charged this week with three counts of lewd conduct. Berndt is alleged to have taken photographs of blindfolded children being spoon-fed his semen. Springer is accused of fondling a girl in his class. The Berndt and Springer cases are believed to be unrelated. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-miramonte-20120210,0,91877.story

Serial killer John Wayne Gacy had accomplices, lawyers say
By James Eng, msnbc.com  2/10/12

Nearly two decades after Chicago serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed for torturing, raping and murdering 33 men and boys in the 1970s, two lawyers say they’ve unearthed evidence that indicates he didn’t act alone in some of the slayings.

Criminal defense attorneys Robert Stephenson and Steven Becker, who are partners in a Chicago law practice, said they re-examined the circumstances surrounding the disappearances of some of the victims. Their conclusion: the so-called “Killer Clown” had at least three accomplices.
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The Chicago Sun-Times and WGN-TV first reported on the lawyers’ claims on Thursday and Friday.

“There is significant evidence out there that suggests that not only did John Wayne Gacy not operate alone, he may not have been involved in some of the murders, and the fact that he was largely a copycat killer,” Stephenson told WGN….

The sheriff said investigators will follow up on the information and, if it proves solid, will try to locate the potential accomplices — two of whom are believed to be still alive. The case has had so many twists and loose ends – seven Gacy victims remain unidentified, for example – that Dart is keeping an open mind….

Gacy, a building contractor who performed as an amateur clown at fundraising events and children’s parties, was tried in Chicago in 1980 and convicted of 33 murders. He was executed in 1994

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/10/10374067-serial-killer-john-wayne-gacy-had-accomplices-lawyers-say

West Memphis 3 judge speaks after 18 years
Feb 10, 2012 By Janice Broach

MEMPHIS, TN -      (WMC-TV) – For 18 years the West Memphis Three appealed their case and every time Judge David Burnett denied those appeals and he refused to speak about the case or the men. outside of the courtroom. “Frankly, everything I did was affirmed by the Arkansas Supreme Court,” Burnett said.
http://www.wmctv.com/story/16912053/west-memphis-3-judge-speaks-after-18-years

Wellspring of Compassion- Self-Care for Sensitive People Healing from Trauma by Sonia Connolly – Whether you are new to healing or an old hand, whether your trauma is long past or ongoing, this book offers validation, support, and tools for healing. With this guide, uncover your wellspring of compassion, understand your reactions to trauma, rebuild self-trust, and respond to your inner voices with kindness. Reconnect with your body and respect your internal NO and YES. Nourished by compassion, grow into a shape defined by your history and desires, like a tree becoming more intricately itself every year. Sundown Healing Arts ISBN: 9780983903802 2012

Sonia Connolly, LMT helps sensitive trauma survivors regain self-trust and peace through intuitive, compassionate bodywork in Portland, Oregon. Her writing about trauma is inspired by twelve years of client sessions and twenty years of self-observation while healing from abuse.
http://www.wellspringofcompassion.com/