Church’s Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group, SNAP petition, Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman
March 14, 2012 Comments Off on 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
Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinar – Resourcefulness as a survival tool
January 25, 2012 Comments Off on Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinar – Resourcefulness as a survival tool
Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinar – Resourcefulness as a survival tool
Upcoming Webinar:
Saturday, February 18
12 pm Pacific Time
Presenter: Alison
“Resourcefulness as a survival tool. Drawing on both internal and external resources”
Alison grew up within an inter-generational cult in Eastern Ontario, Canada rooted in the Knights of Columbus and the 18th century Catholic Church. To pay for disappointing her family of not carrying on the tradition of the firstborn son, Alison bore three children by members of her family and was forced to sacrifice them. She did her University studies from 1993-2004 during which time she struggled with unmanaged dissociation, anorexia and bulimia.
Her healing began in a treatment program in the USA, and continues at home in Canada. Alison has two published articles and now speaks out about SRA. She has been recently diagnosed with a terminal illness and still continues her endeavors to bring light to the issue of SRA. She has worked as an HIV counselor and a rep on the LGBTQ Caucus of the Ontario NDP. Alison is a part time music theory teacher and Artist Manager.
Having the ability to be resourceful has kept Alison alive for the past 36 years. She believes that all human beings have basic human rights as outlined in the Canadian Human Rights Code, and she has drawn on resources, both internal as well as external. She will be talking about how this resourcefulness has saved her life and will offer suggestions on how other survivors can find and draw on their own many resources.
REGISTRATION
Registration closes Thursday evening February 16, 2012
To reserve a space in the webinar, e-mail Shamai at shamai@survivorship.org and give her this information:
1. Your name
2. The webinar you wish to attend: “ Resourcefulness as a survival tool. Drawing on both internal and external resources”
3. Amount and method of payment (check, PayPal, money order)
4. Your preferred e-mail address (so we can send you instructions)
5. The name you will be using for the webinar. (This does not have to be your real name or your message board screen name.)
You will receive a confirmation email immediately and an invitation link and instructions after the registration closes
COST
Webinars are on a sliding scale from $50.00 to full scholarship (while we offer full scholarships for webinars please consider paying whatever you are able to. Even $5 will help to cover the cost of the webinar provider). Please remember to factor in the cost of the telephone call if you don’t have a computer headset. The PayPal button is near the bottom of the page at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html
If you wish to pay by check please send it to: Survivorship, Family Justice Center, 470 27th Street, Oakland, CA 94612.
PAST WEBINARS
Survivorship members may listen to past webinars in the members’ section.
For information on joining Survivorship, go to http://www.survivorship.org/about/membership.html
Complete details on all our webinars are at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Shamai@survivorship.org
Afghan president pardons imprisoned rape victim – after she agrees to marry attacker – International outrage over plight
December 3, 2011 Comments Off on Afghan president pardons imprisoned rape victim – after she agrees to marry attacker – International outrage over plight
Afghan president pardons imprisoned rape victim – after she agrees to marry attacker – International outrage over plight
by The Associated Press Friday, December 2 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday pardoned an Afghan woman serving a 12-year prison sentence for having sex out of wedlock after she was raped by a relative.
Karzai’s office said in a statement that the woman and her attacker have agreed to marry. That would reverse an earlier decision by the 19-year-old woman, who had previously refused a judge’s offer of freedom if she agreed to marry the rapist….
About half of the 300 to 400 women jailed in Afghanistan are imprisoned for so-called “moral crimes” such as sex outside marriage, or running away from their husbands, according to reports by the United Nations and research organizations. Fleeing husbands isn’t considered a crime in Afghanistan.
The EU welcomed the woman’s release.
“Her case has served to highlight the plight of Afghan women, who 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime often continue to suffer in unimaginable conditions, deprived of even the most basic human rights,” the European Union’s Ambassador and Special Representative to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Usackas, said….
Some of the most severe restrictions women faced under the Taliban, like a ban on attending schools and having to have a male escort to venture outside the home, were done away with when the radical Islamic movement was driven from power in 2001. But Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative and male-dominated society, meaning women are still sold to husbands and rights enshrined in law are often ignored in practice.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/afghan-president-pardons-imprisoned-rape-victim-agrees-marry-attacker-article-1.985756
Non-State Torture Articles
November 3, 2011 Comments Off on Non-State Torture Articles
Non-State Torture Articles
These articles describes crimes.
Non-State Torture—Specifically Sexualized Non-State Torture—Inflicted in the Private/Domestic Sphere against Girls/Women: An Emerging “Harmful Practice” Jeanne Sarson, MEd, BScN, RN & Linda MacDonald, MEd, BN, RN 2011 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/cedaw_crc_contributions/JeanneSarson-LindaMacDonald.pdf
Please Take My Hand: Stepping into the Reality of Victims of Non-State Actor Torture – This post is by Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald as part of the series ‘Culture and Human Rights: Challenging Cultural Excuses for Gender-Based Violence’ hosted by Gender Across Borders and Violence Is Not Our Culture. http://www.violenceisnotourculture.org/node/2238
Canada: Non-State Torture (NST) Girls & Guns – This article by Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald highlights how parent(s), guardians, and spouses are among the non-state actor torturers with guns and bullets in their arsenal of tools.
Since 1993, Jeanne Sarson MEd,
BScN, RN and Linda MacDonald MEd, BN, RN, have been relationship educators and human rights defenders working with persons who have experienced various forms of relational torture, including ritual abuse-torture.
Canadian child pornography, gun usage, criminal harassment and drug offence crimes has increased(1), with sexualised violence within families four times higher for girls than for boys(2). This criminal data becomes a relational mix of daily terrorisation, torture and horrification for girls in families/groups who derive pleasure from inflicting Non State Torture (NST). Since 1993, over 2000 contacts with women mostly, from Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, the U.S.(3) and Canada(4) disclose similar NST victimisation inflicted since infancy or soon thereafter. (Bulletin No. 26, October 2011 IANSA Women’s Network) November 2, 2011
http://www.iansa-women.org/sites/default/files/newsviews/iansa_wn_bulletin_26_en.pdf
Canadian Federation of Univ. Women – Criminalization of Non-state Actor Torture
August 13, 2011 Comments Off on Canadian Federation of Univ. Women – Criminalization of Non-state Actor Torture
Canadian Federation of University Women
….Both MacDonald & Sarson have worked tirelessly on the resolution “Criminalization of Non-state Actor Torture.” Now that it has passed at the AGM, the CFUW will urge the Government of Canada “to amend, immediately, the Criminal Code of Canada to include torture committed by private individuals and organizations, (non-state actors) as a specific and distinct criminal offence.”
http://www.cfuw-truro.org/CFUW-Truro/Welcome/Entries/2011/8/11_St._Johns_AGM_a_great_success.html
Canadian Federation of University Women
Fédération Canadienne des Femmes
Diplômées des Universités
Adopted Resolutions 2011
As passed at the AGM, August 6, 2011
CRIMINALIZATION OF NON-STATE ACTOR TORTURE
Proposed by the CFUW International Relations Committee….
RESOLVED, That the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) urge the
Government of Canada to amend, immediately, the Criminal Code of Canada to include torture committed by private individuals and organizations, (non-state actors) as a specific and distinct criminal offence.
RESOLVED: That CFUW urge the Government of Canada to:
I. Exercise due diligence by initiating into Canadian policies and practices without delay, all appropriate measures to ensure that no person is subjected to torture by non-state actors; II. Respect the priority of gender-sensitive frameworks on the United Nations agendas, given that women and girls are disproportionally affected by extreme forms of violence; and III. Uphold Canada’s commitments to United Nations human rights instruments to which Canada is a signatory.
http://www.cfuw.org/doc/Adopted_Resolutions_2011.pdf
ACLU Urges UN to Take Action on Solitary Confinement in the United States
February 23, 2011 Comments Off on ACLU Urges UN to Take Action on Solitary Confinement in the United States
ACLU Urges UN to Take Action on Solitary Confinement in the United States February 21, 2011 by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway
The American Civil Liberties Union last week filed a statement with the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, urging it to to “address the widespread violations of the human rights of prisoners in the United States associated with solitary confinement and call for the adoption of appropriate measures to protect their human rights.
The ACLU calls on the Council to urge the United States to take concrete and appropriate measures to end the egregious violations stemming from solitary confinement of prisoners.”
After providing background on the widespread use of solitary confinement in the United States today, the statement includes a concise and well-documented section titled “Harmful Effects of Solitary Confinement.”…:
There is a broad consensus among mental health experts that long-term solitary confinement is psychologically harmful. Indeed, the damaging effects of solitary confinement, even on persons with no prior history of mental illness, have long been well known. http://solitarywatch.com/2011/02/21/aclu-urges-un-to-take-action-on-solitary-confinement-in-the-united-states/
Abuses Found Mexican Institutions for Disabled, Warren Jeffs Texas bigamy case
December 2, 2010 Comments Off on Abuses Found Mexican Institutions for Disabled, Warren Jeffs Texas bigamy case
Abuses Found at Mexican Institutions for Disabled
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD November 30, 2010
MEXICO CITY — Ten years ago, a human rights group released a scathing, groundbreaking report on abusive, decrepit conditions in Mexican institutions for the mentally and physically disabled, moving the country to promise change and to take the lead in writing international agreements to protect the disabled. But in a new report released Tuesday, the group, Disability Rights International, working with a Mexican human rights organization, said a yearlong investigation revealed “atrocious and abusive conditions” that included lobotomies performed without consent, children missing from orphanages, widespread filth and squalor, and a lack of medical care….
At orphanages, the team found that children were unaccounted for and interviewed residents who had said they had grown up in the facilities, though officials had no record of the names they came in with or arrival date.
Human rights officials and unnamed government officials told them there was no registry or tracking system for children placed in public or private institutions, leaving them prey to human traffickers.
“Due to a failure to provide oversight, children have literally disappeared from institutions,” the report said. “Some of these children may have been subject to sex trafficking and forced labor.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01mexico.htm
Abandoned & Disappeared: Mexico’s Segregation and Abuse of Children and Adults with Disabilities – A report, by Disability Rights International and the Comisión Méxicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos Humanos, on the state of the Mexican mental health care system.
http://documents.nytimes.com/abuses-found-at-mexican-institutions-for-the-disabled
Warren Jeffs returned to Texas to face bigamy case
By PAUL J. WEBER AP Dec. 1, 2010
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has been extradited from Utah to Texas to face trial on bigamy and sexual assault charges, the Texas Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday. Jeffs, who is being held without bail in Texas, is set to make a court appearance Wednesday morning in San Angelo. Texas authorities have charged the ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints with felony bigamy, aggravated sexual assault and assault.
Attorney General’s Office spokesman Jerry Strickland said the 54-year-old Jeffs arrived Tuesday night at a West Texas jail, but declined to specify where he is being held. Jeffs’ Southern Utah-based church practices polygamy in arranged marriages that have involved underage girls….
Jeffs’ Texas charges stem from evidence gathered during a raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado in April 2008. Jeffs had been held at the Utah State Prison after his arrest, prosecution and conviction on two charges of rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 marriage of an underage follower — then 14 — to her 19-year-old cousin. In July, the Utah Supreme overturned the 2007 convictions. Prosecutors there have yet to decide whether they’ll retry Jeffs.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/new/7318902.html
The Unspoken Crime (incest), Should the Pope face charges
September 14, 2010 Comments Off on The Unspoken Crime (incest), Should the Pope face charges
The Unspoken Crime By Cara Tabachnick September 13th, 2010
The U.S. justice system is failing victims of incest, a Crime Report investigation shows…. It is hard to find a more serious crime than the rape of a child; yet when a family member is the perpetrator, justice is sometimes hard to achieve. Child welfare advocates say that the safeguards in place to protect the child usually fail. Research suggests they are right….
according to a 1990 study by University of South Florida criminologist Lorie Fridell, prosecutors tend to defer or divert complex incest cases to child protective services who can provide for an alternative, non-court resolution, such as therapy or community service, in an effort to keep the family together.
Other research has drawn a similar conclusion. A 1993 report of the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law, found that more than 90 percent of all child abuse cases do not go forward to prosecution. Moreover, the study showed many suspects are released without further intervention by law enforcement or the justice system….
“If a kid is raped by a neighbor, people call police, but if the same person rapes their own child they call social services. What kind of justice is that?” said Grier Weeks, Executive Director of the National Association to Protect Children (PROTECT), a national organization based in Tennessee that works on lobbying for child abuse legislation
If a child accuses a caretaker of abuse, CPS has to be involved, but law enforcement does not. So, if a child is raped by his or her parent and goes to the police, CPS has to be notified in all states. But if CPS is notified, they are not required to tell law enforcement. And herein lies one of the largest conundrums of bringing these cases to justice: too often, experts say, social workers don’t have the training to investigate a sexual abuse allegation. http://thecrimereport.org/2010/09/13/the-unspoken-crime/
Should the Pope face charges? A renowned lawyer makes the case that the Pope should have his day in court for harbouring pedophiles by Brian Bethune September 11, 2010
British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson concedes in The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse, a book set to appear just one week before Benedict XVI makes the first-ever papal state visit to Britain. But, Robertson argues, the once unthinkable idea that Benedict or a successor could be charged with obstructing justice or for “harbouring pedophile priests” is now very thinkable, and—given evolving trends in international human rights law—may soon be practical….
So many cases emerged that the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference commissioned an expert study, which concluded in 2004 that, since 1950, 10,667 individuals had made plausible allegations against 4,392 priests, 4.3 per cent of the entire body of clergy in that period. The total bill in settlements with victims is spiralling toward $2 billion and won’t stop, Forbes predicts, this side of $5 billion. Depressingly similar stories from other First World countries, including Canada, soon emerged; the situation in Latin America and Africa, where no investigations have ever been made, can only be imagined….in 1952 Gerald Fitzgerald, the American founder of the Paraclete order, which treats erring priests of all sorts, brought a specific warning to Rome. “Leaving pedophile priests on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese,” he said, was a moral evil and a scandal waiting to break. http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/11/should-the-pope-face-charges/
You must be logged in to post a comment.