Tag Archives: 1: Poor

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief
Palestinian man kills one Israeli man and wounds another in attack near Jewish settlement in the West Bank
  • Waving the Israelis down, the gunman asked for directions to the nearby spring before pulling out a pistol and shooting them.
  • The deceased was 25-year-old Danny Gonen, a student from Lod.
  • Hamas praised the act, but authorities have yet to determine whether the gunman acted as a part of a larger organization.

“We will not accept a situation in which a young hiker has his life taken from him in the land of Israel because he is Jewish. … The murderous attack that occurred today is another step in the quiet and serious escalation in acts of terrorism we have witnessed in recent months.”

Read the full story at the New York Times.

Sexual + Gender Minorities
Malaysian court fines nine and sentences two trans women to jail for “cross-dressing”
  • The group of women were arrested in Kelantan, one of the 13 of Malaysia’s 14 states that criminalizes cross-dressing.
  • The lawyer representing the group has filed an appeal, and the two jailed have been released on bail.

“Laws against ‘a male person posing as a woman’ not only deny transgender women in Malaysia our fundamental rights as citizens of the country, they also contribute to a hostile environment. … These laws lead people to perceive us as criminals and subject us to humiliation, hate crimes, and other forms of violence.”

Read the full story at PinkNews.

Nationality + Migration
Conflict has displaced 6 million Colombians, second-highest number in the world
  • Colombia’s half-decade of conflict has created ongoing waves of displacement, including 137,000 in 2014, according to the U.N.
  • Beyond the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), new guerilla groups and gangs have sprung up, deterring peace and security.
  • The top recipients of refugees in the Americas are the U.S., Venezuela, and Ecuador.

“We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement, as well as the response required, is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before. … It is terrifying that on the one hand there is more and more impunity for those starting conflicts, and on the other there is seeming utter inability of the international community to work together to stop wars and build and preserve peace.”

Read the full story at the Miami Herald.
(Image Credit: AP, via the Miami Herald)
Sexual + Gender Minorities
Twenty arrested in Morocco, accused of homosexuality, and two more sentenced to four months in prison
  • According to the Aswat Collective, an LGBT rights group, the twenty–mostly gay men and transwomen–were arrested in the resort town of Agadir and will be charged with “incitement to corruption.”
  • Despite its relatively progressive stance on homosexuality compared to its other Middle East and North African neighbors, Morocco has been cracking down on the LGBT community in recent months.
  • The arrests occur as two men have been sentenced to four months in prison for having engaged in public displays of affection in Rabat, the Moroccan capital. (via Le Figaro)

“The Moroccan authorities reaffirm their position through this campaign of oppression and arrests targeting homosexuals, while the country is having an intense debate relative to the decriminalization of homosexuality.”

More on this story at NewNowNext.

(Image Credit: via NewNowNext)

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity
Canadian aboriginal women overrepresented as homicide victims, most often at the hands of their own families and communities
  • Despite representing only 4.3% of the population, aboriginal women represent 16% of female homicide victims nationwide.
  • The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has identified the need to develop new crime prevention strategies in the aboriginal community, which suffers from high levels of poverty, family breakdown, lower life expectancy, and other security-sceptic phenomena.
  • In addition to the 1,017 murdered between 1980 and 2012, another 108 are missing cases from the period.

“Aboriginal women continue to be overrepresented among Canada’s missing and murdered women. And while I applaud the efforts of everyone who is working to lessen violence against aboriginal women, it is clear that much work remains to be done.”

Read the full story at the Guardian.

Religion + Belief
Recent attack on Candomblé followers fuels fears of religious intolerance amongst Brazil’s growing evangelical population
  • An 11-year-old and her family and friends, followers of the Candomblé religion, were attacked by a group of evangelicals while returning from temple.
  • The incident is one of a string of incidents in recent years involving abuse, beatings, forced evictions, and anti-Candomblé rhetoric.
  • Monitors have observed evangelical preachers espousing anti-Candomblé rhetoric to fortify their congregations, which have grown in share to 22% of the population from just 9% two-and-a-half decades ago.

“They want to make people ashamed to practise Candomblé, so they feel they have to turn to the church. …But how can you be a Christian with such hate in your heart?”

More on this story at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Douglas Engle/AP, via The Guardian)

Religion + Belief
Renowned Catholic church in Israel targeted by arson attack, which authorities believe to be the work of Jewish extremists
  • Inside the Church of the Multiplication, an office for pilgrims, a meeting room, bibles, and prayer books were damaged or destroyed in the fire, which led to two hospitalizations.
  • A passage of a Jewish prayer on idol worship was found spray-painted on a wall outside the church, evidence of the latest in a series of widely condemned provocations against churches and mosques.
  • The church is a popular tourist destination in Israel, which believers identify as the site of Jesus’s miracle of the loaves and fish.

“This morning’s outrageous arson attack on a church is an attack on us all. In Israel freedom of worship is one of our core values and is guaranteed under the law. …Those responsible for this despicable crime will face the full force of the law. Hate and intolerance have no place in our society.”

More on this story at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty, via The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration
Making up the second largest group of refugees in Europe, Eritreans flee an authoritarian regime and military conscription
  • Eritreans accounted for a fifth of refugees making the trans-Mediterranean voyage from Africa to Europe last year, becoming the largest group in Italy.
  • The government of Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki has held uninterrupted power since the country gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, with reports of torture, forced disappearance, and mass surveillance practices.
  • Eritreans are forced into low-paid, indefinite military service, which the government says is due to ongoing conflicts with Ethiopia, leading many to leave to avoid conscription.

“It’s too hard to live in Eritrea because there are a lot of things they can do to you. …You can be in the military service for unlimited years, or in prison, and you don’t have a chance to raise your voice, to change the president.”

More on this story at BuzzFeed.

(Image Credit: Baz Ratner/Reuters, via BuzzFeed)

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief
Nine killed at historic African-American church in Charleston, SC, in apparent hate crime
  • A young white man around the age of 21 walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during Wednesday evening prayer activities and opened fire; he remains at large.
  • Built in 1891, the church is one of the oldest historically black churches in the U.S., where South Carolina state senator Clementa C. Pickney, among the murdered, was pastor.
  • Eight died at the scene and another died en route to the hospital, with at least one other victim having been hospitalized.

“It is unfathomable that somebody in today’s society would walk into a church while they are having a prayer meeting and take their lives.”

More on this story at The New York Times.

(Image Credit: Richard Ellis/European Pressphoto Agency, via The New York Times)

Sexual + Gender Minorities
Man assaults transgender woman with plastic bottle before pushing her onto the subway tracks in possible hate crime in New York.
  • Onlookers pulled the woman from the tracks before a train entered the station.
  • The New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is searching for a man identified in surveillance video.
  • Homicides against transwomen have been high across the U.S. for the first half of 2015.

More on this story at BuzzFeed.