July, 09 2019, 12:00am EDT
Taliban Bombings in Afghanistan Chillingly Disregard Human Life
The Taliban's killing of civilians through a continuous spate of bombings demonstrates the armed group's chilling disregard for human lives, Amnesty International said today.
The human rights organization said the July 7, 2019 bombing in a crowded area of Ghazni city that killed at least 14 people, including one child, and injured more than 180, included 60 children, shows a chilling disregard for human life.
WASHINGTON
The Taliban's killing of civilians through a continuous spate of bombings demonstrates the armed group's chilling disregard for human lives, Amnesty International said today.
The human rights organization said the July 7, 2019 bombing in a crowded area of Ghazni city that killed at least 14 people, including one child, and injured more than 180, included 60 children, shows a chilling disregard for human life.
"These bombings demonstrate a chilling disregard for human life. At the same time that the Taliban is engaged in supposed peace talks with other Afghans, the armed group continues to claim the lives of civilians, including children," said Samira Hamidi, South Asia campaigner at Amnesty International.
The Taliban said they had targeted the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, in Ghazni, which is located near public places including schools. Under international humanitarian law, all precautions must be taken to avoid civilian casualties.
The Ghazni bombing comes less than a week after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a large bombing near the Ministry of Defence, killing three people and wounding more than 90 others, including 50 children from nearby schools.
Last year saw the number of civilian deaths recorded since 2009, including the highest number of children killed. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, 3,804 civilians - including more than 900 children - were killed in the country in 2018, and a further 7,000 people were injured.
In recent weeks, the Taliban has also threatened to target Afghan journalists and media groups. In a statement issued on June 24, 2019, the Taliban's "military commission" issued an ultimatum to journalists, warning them against issuing statements and running advertisements that are critical of the armed group.
The Taliban said it would consider these journalists "not as media organizations but as nests of the enemy's intelligence apparatus" and targeted as such. Journalists and employees of media organizations, the Taliban said, "will not be safe."
"There is no justification for targeting journalists and media outlets and this would amount to war crimes. Afghanistan's journalists are among the bravest in the world, working under extremely difficult conditions in a country that has saw more journalists killed last year than anywhere else. They deserve protection, and the people who are threatening them must be brought to justice through fair trials without recourse to the death penalty," said Samira Hamidi.
This statement is available at: https://www.amnestyusa.org/taliban-bombings-in-afghanistan-chillingly-disregard-human-life
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Progressive NY State Lawmakers Join 250+ Jews Protesting Netanyahu's UN Speech
"As Jewish New Yorkers committed to racial justice, we believe apartheid is indefensible," said one protester. "Palestinians deserve to live with dignity and freedom."
Sep 23, 2023
A pair of democratic socialist New York state lawmakers joined more than 250 Jewish demonstrators and allies on Friday afternoon outside United Nations headquarters in Midtown Manhattan to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's General Assembly speech defending his far-right government's apartheid policies.
New York state Sen. Jabari Brisport (D-25) and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-36) joined activists from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Adalah Justice Project, and other human rights defenders as Netanyahu—whose government is widely considered the most extreme in Israeli history—addressed world leaders inside the U.N. building.
During his speech, Netanyahu displayed a map of the Middle East without Palestine, while claiming he has "long sought to make peace with the Palestinians."
The protesters said there can be no peace under apartheid.
"As Jewish New Yorkers committed to racial justice, we believe apartheid is indefensible," asserted JVP's Jay Saper. "Palestinians deserve to live with dignity and freedom."
Brisport—who in May introduced the Not On Our Dime! Act, which would prevent state-registered charities from funding violations of the Geneva Convention by Israeli settlers—said: "In Brooklyn we have a saying, 'Spread love, it's the Brooklyn way.' Netanyahu has spread hate and displacement. And that has no place in our city."
The senator has previously drawn attention to the more than 700,000 Israelis living in over 250 illegal settlements built on Palestinian land in the unlawfully occupied West Bank, with the backing of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Many of the illegal colonies are funded by New York-based organizations.
Last year, the Israeli government forcibly displaced more than 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in what many critics have called acts of ethnic cleansing. Hundreds more Palestinians have been displaced this year to make way for Jewish settler-colonists.
There have also been multiple deadly settler rampages through Palestinian towns this year, revenge attacks that a wide range of critics—from Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) to conservative U.S. Jewish groups and an IDF general—called "pogroms."
"We should refuse to host a man who has openly lauded the ethnic cleansing of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, who gave the green light for bombing campaigns that left large parts of Gaza uninhabitable, a man who approved killing sprees that riddled streets with Palestinians wounded and killed," Adalah Justice Project communications and strategy director Sumaya Awad told the demonstrators.
According to the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 200 Palestinians this year, making it the deadliest year for Palestinians since the final year of the second intifada, or general uprising, in 2005. The advocacy group Defense for Children International Palestine says 45 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis so far this year. At least 30 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian militant attacks in 2023.
Through it all, the U.S. continues to give Israel—the 13th-wealthiest nation in the world per capita, according to the International Monetary Fund—billions of dollars in nearly unconditional annual aid.
"Earlier today, someone asked me, 'Why should New Yorkers care about what's happening halfway across the world in Israel?'" said Mamdani, a co-sponsor of Brisport's bill. "There are 3.8 billion reasons for us to care: Same as the number of dollars that go from the U.S. to Israel in military aid every year."
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"In this particular case, here's the audacity: Self-managed abortion is not even a crime in fucking Nebraska," said one rights advocate.
Sep 22, 2023
Amid a wave of right-wing efforts to quash abortion rights across the United States, a Nebraska judge on Friday sentenced Jessica Burgess to two years in prison after helping her teenage daughter end her pregnancy and bury the remains in early 2022.
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Celeste Burgess was sentenced to 90 days behind bars and released earlier this month. Tanner Barnhill, who pleaded no contest to attempting to conceal a death for helping with the burial, was sentenced to nine months of probation and 40 hours of community service.
Jessica Burgess, who took a plea deal, faced up to five years in prison. She pleaded guilty to providing an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation, tampering with human remains, and false reporting. As Jezebelnoted, the 42-year-old was charged even though the state's 20-week ban that was in effect at the time applied to "licensed abortion providers, not people self-managing their own terminations."
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The Appeal reported Friday that "abortions after 21 weeks rarely occur within the United States, accounting for just 1% of all abortions. It is unclear when Celeste first knew she was pregnant. Police say Celeste, then 17, got an ultrasound showing she was 23 weeks pregnant on March 8, 2022."
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The Burgesses' cases have also heightened concerns about digital communications, given that police obtained and Facebook parent company Meta complied with a search warrant for their private messages. Further, there are rising fears that U.S. law enforcement may eventually try to use new laboratory methods allegedly developed by researchers in Poland—which has outlawed most abortions—to detect medication commonly used to end pregnancies in biological specimens.
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"This is unprecedented: a sitting president showing up on the picket lines with workers," said Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal.
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In a historic move, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed Friday to travel to Michigan next week and stand with striking United Auto Workers members, an announcement that came just hours after union autoworkers widened their strike to include all U.S. General Motors and Stellantis parts distribution centers.
"Tuesday, I'll go to Michigan to join the picket line and stand in solidarity with the men and women of UAW as they fight for a fair share of the value they helped create," Biden said on social media. "It's time for a win-win agreement that keeps American auto manufacturing thriving with well-paid UAW jobs."
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Biden—who is seeking reelection next year—is a self-described "pro-labor president" but his response to the UAW is notably different from last year, when he came under fire for signing legislation to block a nationwide rail strike.
At noon Eastern time this Friday, workers at all 38 GM and Stellantis parts distribution facilities across the U.S. walked off the job as the UAW escalated its strike.
"We will shut down parts distribution until those two companies come to their senses and come to the table with a serious offer," UAW president Shawn Fain said in a video update. "The plants that are already on strike will remain on strike."
Fain said Ford was spared the escalation because UAW and company negotiators were making "real progress" at the bargaining table.
While some striking workers said they'd prefer the president didn't join them, others welcomed the solidarity.
"Me personally, I wouldn't mind if Biden stepped up and showed some support," 55-year-old Laura Zielinski of Toledo, Ohio, toldReuters earlier this week, recalling 2010, when he was vice president and visited her city's Stellantis assembly plant.
"Support like that would put a spotlight on the talks—kind of give a nudge to the companies," she added.
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Friday on social media that it was "unprecedented" for a sitting U.S. president to join striking workers on a picket line.
Jeremi Suri, a historian and presidential scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, toldReuters the last time it happened was probably in 1902, when then-President Theodore Roosevelt invited striking coal miners to the White House.
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