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Iran Protest Death Toll Rises as Alarm Grows over Crackdown ‘Massacre’

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At least 192 protesters have been killed in Iran’s biggest movement against the Islamic republic in more than three years, a rights group said Sunday, as warnings grew that authorities were committing a “massacre” to quell the demonstrations.

The protests, initially sparked by anger over the rising cost of living, have now become a movement against the theocratic system in place in Iran since the 1979 revolution and have already lasted two weeks.

The mass rallies are one of the biggest challenges to the rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, coming in the wake of Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June, which was backed by the United States.

Protests have swelled in recent days despite an internet blackout that has lasted more than 60 hours, according to monitor Netblocks, with activists warning the shutdown was limiting the flow of information and the actual toll risks being far higher.

“Since the start of the protests, Iran Human Rights has confirmed the killing of at least 192 protesters,” the Norway-based non-governmental organisation said, warning that the deaths “may be even more extensive than we currently imagine”. (Read more from “Iran Protest Death Toll Rises as Alarm Grows over Crackdown ‘Massacre’” HERE)

UN Human Rights Committee Formally Excludes Unborn Child From ‘Right to Life’

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Despite pleas from more than one hundred governments and pro-life organizations, including the United States and Poland, the UN Human Rights Committee has excluded unborn children from the right to life in international law this week in Geneva.

“I was worried for a minute we would discuss the word limit for separate opinions,” joked Yuval Shany. The Israeli law professor was mocking pro-life concerns as the committee rushed through a second reading of a controversial draft commentary on the right to life in what is perhaps the most important UN human rights treaty.

Shany, who has been in charge of the draft for two years, knew there would be no dissent. The 18 members of the committee that records the state efforts to implement the treaty unanimously agreed on a text that in some respects is more extreme than the previous one.

The committee added language about access to abortion not just being a right under the covenant, but that it must also be “affordable” and “effective,” as abortion groups recommended to the committee. U.S. law professor Sarah Cleveland said this was needed to make it easier for rape victims to obtain abortions.

No expert expressed concern for children in the womb capable of feeling pain, or brought up the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which expressly requires states to protect children “before birth.” (Read more from “UN Human Rights Committee Formally Excludes Unborn Child From ‘Right to Life'” HERE)

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Jewish Human Rights Group Slams Twitter for Allowing Hamas Supporters to Broadcast ‘HitlerWasRight’ Hashtag

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Photo Credit: ScreenshotBy Joshua Levitt.

Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday demanded that social media platform Twitter do more to stem anti-Semitic hate from supporters of Hamas, after online magazine BuzzFeed reported on Sunday how the #HitlerWasRight hashtag was gaining widespread usage on the site.

“Twitter needs to articulate a coherent policy in dealing with hate and terrorism and live up to those standards,” SWC dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper told The Algemeiner. “The freedom of speech fig leaf doesn’t cover such hatred in the private domain.”

Cooper said that as part of the SWC’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project, the organization grades social networking platforms for their responsiveness in dealing with digital terrorism and hate.

“Facebook usually earns A-, YouTube C,” Cooper said. “Last year, after meeting with senior Twitter officials in San Francisco, we upgraded Twitter to a D-. Previously it received an F.”

Cooper said SWC is scheduled to meet Twitter executives again later this month. But that “even without this pornographic anti-Semitic hate, Twitter was well on its way to another F as it remains the social networking platform of choice of terrorists and their supporters around the world.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / CHRISTIAN HARTMANNNeo-Nazis, Islamists declare ‘You Jews are beasts’ during protest of Israeli operation

By Benjamin Weinthal.

A demonstration in Frankfurt against Operation Protective Edge erupted into violence, with protesters tossing stones at the police.

According to the Frankfurter Rundschau paper, about 2,500 protesters appeared in downtown Frankfurt, screaming “God is great,” and slogans such as “freedom for Palestine” and “children-murderer Israel.”

Eight police officers were injured. One sign at the rally was titled, “You Jews are Beasts.”

German media reported that after the protests, groups sought to locate Jewish institutions. The Frankfurt police said Jewish institutions would be protected. It is unclear if the goal was to attack said institutions.

According to the Rundschau, student organization Left-SDS, Islamists and some members of the Neo-Nazi group National Socialists Rhein-Main attended the anti-Israel protest. Flags from Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Hamas were on display at the protest. Banners compared Prime Minister Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler.

Read more from this story HERE.

Jailed Marine’s Attorney says Arrest ‘Tainted’ by Human Rights Violations

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Photo Credit: Fox News The attorney for the Marine being held in a Mexican prison on gun charges told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Thursday that the case is “tainted by several human rights violations.”

A Mexican federal judge sent Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi back to prison Wednesday after he made his first official courtroom appearance since being locked up more than three months ago for accidentally crossing the border with guns in his pickup truck.

Fernando Benitez, Tahmooressi’s lawyer, told Fox News Thursday he believes the entire case against his client has been tainted because of the way it was handled by Mexican authorities, and should be dismissed.

“Right now we have a lot of evidence that the arrest is tainted by several serious human rights violations,” Benitez said on “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” “The further we go into evidence, into that topic, the more clear it will become I believe.”

Benitez said the violations occurred during the time Tahmooressi was held at the customs point of entry, but said he was not at liberty to discuss them in detail.

Read more from this story HERE.

UN: No Obamacare for Illegal Aliens a Human Rights Concern

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The UN Human Rights Committee at its March 2014 session in Geneva adopted a list of “observations” for its fourth report on human rights in the United States, citing the denial of coverage through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, to illegal aliens as a human rights concern.

Under the heading “Immigrants,” in the “concluding observations” portion of the report, the committee questions the “mandatory nature of the deportation of foreigners” and then addresses health care for those in the United States illegally.

“Finally, the Committee expresses concerns about the exclusion of millions of undocumented immigrants and their children from coverage under the Affordable Care Act and the limited coverage of undocumented immigrants and immigrants residing lawfully in the U.S. for less than five years by Medicare and Children Health Insurance, all resulting in difficulties in access of immigrants to adequate health care,” the report states.

The Human Rights Committee, which comprises 18 independent legal experts who serve for four years, is a separate entity to the Human Rights Council (HRC), also based in Geneva, which the Obama administration joined in 2009.

“We’re committed to advancing a strong human rights agenda, working with multiple partners from all regions of the world,” then-Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner said in September 2009, the day the U.S. took up its seat on the HRC for the first time.

Read more from this story HERE.

United Nations Elects Human Rights Violators to Human Rights Council

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Photo Credit: APThe United Nations elected China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to seats on its Human Rights Council Tuesday, all countries that have been widely condemned by international groups for gross human rights violations.

The U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) cast votes for 14 seats on the 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC). The HRC is responsible for adopting resolutions that censure human rights abuses globally and placing special monitors on problem countries and issues.

“China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia systematically violate the human rights of their own citizens, and they consistently vote the wrong way on U.N. initiatives to protect the human rights of others,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch, in a press release.

“When the U.N.’s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse, the world’s victims suffer,” he added.

France, Britain, South Africa, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Namibia, Maldives, Macedonia, and Mexico also secured seats in the vote and will serve three-year terms.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Leaker Edward Snowden Among 3 Finalists for EU’s Top Human Rights Prize

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden is among three finalists for the European Union’s top human rights prize.

European lawmakers on Monday narrowed down the list of nominees for the prestigious 50,000 euro ($65,000) award to Snowden, Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, and imprisoned dissidents from Belarus.

The pro-environment Greens’ caucus said Snowden, who leaked a trove of documents on U.S. surveillance agencies’ programs, deserves to win because he “risked his freedom to protect us.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Fugitive Snowden to Meet with Human Rights Groups

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Photo Credit: ReutersFormer intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden asked to meet human rights groups at a Moscow airport on Friday to discuss what he called “threatening behaviour” by the United States to prevent him gaining asylum.

The meeting would be the first of its kind since Snowden flew to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23. He has been stranded in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport ever since, unable to take up asylum offers from third countries.

Snowden is wanted by Washington on espionage charges for divulging details of secret U.S. surveillance programs. The email address from which he sent the invitation to human rights groups was confirmed as authentic by an airport official.

“In recent weeks we have witnessed an unlawful campaign by officials in the U.S. Government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Snowden wrote.

“The scale of threatening behavior is without precedent,” read the letter, a copy of which was posted to Facebook by an official of Human Rights Watch.

Read more from this story HERE.

International Human Rights Group: NSA Surveillance Undermining US Democracy

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Photo Credit: WNDBy F. Michael Maloof. The National Security Agency, probably the most secretive of the U.S. intelligence branches, has very limited congressional oversight, and those privileged few – generally the chairmen of the respective intelligence committees in the House and Senate – cannot divulge information to other members.

Supporters say it’s needed for national security.

But a human rights organization is warning that such “national security” efforts may, in fact, be undermining the democracy on which America was built, or worse.

“A system of secret surveillance for the protection of national security many undermine or even destroy democracy, under the cloak of defending it,” warns the European Court of Human Rights, a part of the European Union’s European Council.

The issue of secret spying on Americans has been flooding the headlines since whistleblower Edward Snowden grabbed as many classified surveillance secrets from the government as he could, then took off on a globe-trotting trip and started spilling secrets about the tentacles Washington is using to spy on individual Americans. Read more from this story HERE.

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Government tapping into underseas cables for surveillance?

By Fox News. Not only is the U.S. government gathering information from tech companies on global Internet traffic — according to new reports, the NSA is also siphoning off data from underseas cables that criss-cross the world.

The Washington Post on Wednesday published a classified NSA slide that provided side-by-side guidance on the two surveillance programs.

“You Should Use Both,” the slide said, in an apparent message to NSA personnel. Read more from this story HERE.

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The NSA slide you haven’t seen

Photo Credit: Washington Post

By Craig Timberg. Recent debate over U.S. government surveillance has focused on the information that American technology companies secretly provide to the National Security Agency. But that is only one of the ways the NSA eavesdrops on international communications.

A classified NSA slide obtained by The Washington Post lists “Two Types of Collection.”

One is PRISM, the NSA program that collects information from technology companies, which was first revealed in reports by the Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper last month…

The slide also shows a crude map of the undersea cable network that carries data from either side of North America on to the rest of the world. As a story in Sunday’s Post made clear, these undersea cables are essential to worldwide data flows and to the surveillance capabilities of the U.S. government and its allies…

Both slides have circles attached to arrows suggesting possible collection points, but they cover areas too broad to discern where NSA accesses fiber-optic cable networks. The slides also list code names under the Upstream program. Read more from this story HERE.

Chair of the RNC Pushes Amnesty Bill as “Human Rights Issue”

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Photo Credit: Chris Usher

Photo Credit: Chris Usher

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Saturday pitched a gathering of Hispanic public officials on the GOP’s support for immigration reform, characterizing the call for tougher border control as a human rights issue.

“We need a solution that strengthens families. We need a solution that expands economic opportunity. And one of the reasons we need improved border security — that is not mentioned enough — is to further prevent violence and drug trafficking… and the brutal human trafficking and exploitation of women and girls,” he said at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference.

Priebus added that it’s “important that Republicans are taking a lead in this policy discussion.”

The Senate on Wednesday passed an immigration reform bill, 68-32, with every Democrat and 14 Republicans voting in favor.

In its current form, however, the bill has little chance of passing the House, as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said he won’t bring a package to the floor that doesn’t have the support of a majority of Republicans in the lower chamber.

Read more from this story HERE.