Tag Archives: 1: Poor

Age, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Canada News | First Nations

Rash of suicide attempts leads to emergency declaration in Ontario First Nations community
  • Soon after the Attawapiskat First Nation’s council had declared a state of emergency following months of suicides and suicide attempts, 16 members of the northern Ontario First Nation attempted to take their lives.
  • Since last fall, the community has seen more than 100 suicide attempts among its population of 2,000, with victims ranging in age from 11 to 71.
  • Poor standards of living, limited healthcare access, and the legacies of brutal policies against First Nations have contributed to high indigenous suicide rates, with suicide/self-harm the leading cause of death among indigenous people under the age of 44.

Read more:
“How the Attawapiskat suicide crisis unfolded” (The Toronto Star)
“First Nations community grappling with suicide crisis: ‘We’re crying out for help’” (The Guardian)
“5 more Attawapiskat youth attempt suicide in ‘spiralling situation’” (CBC News)

(Image Credit: Chris Wattie/Reuters, via The Toronto Star)

Ideology + Affiliation, Religion + Belief

Bangladesh News | Secular Writers

Protests planned after secular Bangladeshi blogger killed by suspected Islamist militants in Dhaka
  • Nazimuddin Samad, a law student at a Dhaka university, was attacked at night by a group of machete-wielding men while returning home from class.
  • An online activist group described Samad as “a loud voice against all injustice and also a great supporter of secularism,” and students at Jagannath University have called for demonstrations in protest of his murder.
  • The murder follows six similar killings in 2015 and attacks on foreign nationals in Bangladesh.

Read more:
“JnU student killed in suspected militant attack” (Dhaka Tribune)
“Liberal Bangladeshi blogger killed by machete-wielding attackers” (Reuters)
“Strike at Jagannath University on Sunday to protest Nazim murder” (bdnews24.com)

(Image Credit: via Dhaka Tribune)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Israel & Palestine News | Palestinians & Bedouins

Israel triples rate of demolition of Palestinian and Bedouin structures in the West Bank
  • Since the beginning of 2016, the average monthly demolition rate has increased to 165 a month, a dramatic increase from the 50-per-month of 2012-2015.
  • The coordinator of Israel’s activities in the West Bank indicated the increased rate is an attempt to get through the 11,000 outstanding demolition orders.
  • Palestinian and Bedouin structures are deemed illegal in the West Bank if built without difficult-to-get permits, in a designated (but often seldom-used) firing range, or in violation of colonial-era planning and zoning restrictions.

Read more:
“With demolitions, Israel tightens squeeze on West Bank Palestinians” (Reuters)
“UNRWA Condemns Ongoing Israeli Demolitions of Palestinian Homes” (teleSUR English)
“35 Palestinians left homeless due to massive demolitions by the IOF, Wednesday” (Palestine News Network)

(Image Credit: Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters)

Nationality + Migration, Religion + Belief

Czech Republic | Iraqi Christian Refugees

Czech Republic expels Iraqi Christian refugees for attempting to cross into Germany
  • Interior Minister Milan Chovanec announced the 25 refugees have seven days to arrange their return to Iraq.
  • Chovanec accused the Iraqis of “abusing the country’s generosity” after they were caught at the German border and returned.
  • The Czech Republic agreed to accept 153 Christian refugees from Iraq in December, but only 89 have been resettled so far and Chovanec has suspended the relocation program.

Read more:
“Czechs to return Iraqi Christians who tried to move to Germany, interior minister says” (Reuters)
“Czechs To Repatriate 25 Iraqi Christians Who Tried To Cross Into Germany” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Ideology + Affiliation, Race + Color + Ethnicity

China News | Tibetan Activist

Tibetan education activist charged with inciting separatism
  • Tashi Wangchuk has been detained in Yushu, Qinghai Province, for months in secret and faces up to 15 years in prison.
  • While Tashi’s writings promote widely accepted Tibetan autonomy, the Tibetan entrepreneur has publicly opposed Tibetan independence.
  • Tashi has been a vocal advocate for Tibetan-language education in line with constitutional guarantees to ethnic autonomy.

Read more:
“China Charges Tibetan Education Advocate With Inciting Separatism” (The New York Times)
“Inciting Separatism Charge for Tibetan Education Advocate” (China Digital Times)
“Tibetans Fight to Salvage Fading Culture in China” (The New York Times, November 2015)

(Image Credit: Gilles Sabrie/The New York Times)

Age, Gender

Cameroon Feature | Women & Children

The Weaponized Girls of Boko Haram

As Boko Haram’s successes in northeastern Nigeria have been rolled back, the extremist group’s attentions have turned elsewhere in the region, including neighboring Cameroon. Rare in other global terrorist activity, female suicide bombers between 14 and 24 years of age have formed the lion’s share of suicide attacks in Cameroon, comprising some 80% of incidents. Female suicide bombers have also been deployed in Nigeria, most recently in Maiduguri. Reuters investigates the pipeline from abduction to sexual slavery to suicide attacks that women captured by Boko Haram have found themselves caught up in.

Read:
“Weakened Boko Haram sends girl bombers against Cameroon civilians” (Reuters)

Additional:
“Video: The war against Boko Haram’s suicide bombers in Cameroon” (France24)
“Nigeria mosque hit by Maiduguri suicide bombers” (BBC)

(Image Credit: Joe Penney/Reuters)

Gender, Ideology + Affiliation

Sudan Feature | Women Activists

Video

The Embattled Women Activists of Sudan

A new Human Rights Watch report details the threatening conditions faced by women activists in Sudan. Women have reported being subjected to abuse, sexual violence, and arbitrary detention by Sudan’s security forces, while local media have slurred them as “lesbians and prostitutes.” As international agencies have called for more women in conflict resolution and men have continued violating women activists without impunity, women seeking to invest in their country’s future have struggled to find ways to include their voices while protecting their well-being.

Read more:
Good Girls Don’t Protest (Human Rights Watch)
Sudan: Silencing Women Rights Defenders (Human Rights Watch, YouTube)
“‘Good girls don’t protest’: report exposes attacks on Sudan’s female activists” (The Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Saudi Arabia News | LGBT & Mistaken Identity

Saudi man arrested in Jeddah for flying rainbow flag
  • The doctor was arrested by the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Saudi Arabia’s religious police, for displaying the international symbol of LGBT pride.
  • The man claimed to be unfamiliar with the meaning, having purchased the flag online because his children enjoyed it, and was later released on bail after an investigation and the removal of the flag.
  • His arrest comes as Saudi authorities have announced that “soliciting homosexual acts” via social media will be punishable by death.

Read more:
“Saudi man arrested for flying Pride flag above home” (Middle East Eye)
“Saudi man arrested for flying ‘pretty’ rainbow flag, had no idea it represented gay pride” (Al Bawaba)
(CNN Arabic) طبيب يرفع علم “المثليين” على منزله بجدة.. والقتل تعزيراً قد تصبح عقوبة الشواذ المجاهرين إلكترونياً

(Image Credit: via Al Bawaba)

Ideology + Affiliation, Nationality + Migration, Religion + Belief

Bahrain News | Shiite Dissidents

Bahrain revokes citizenship of dissidents as denaturalization campaign continues
  • Five Bahrainis were stripped of their citizenship and sentenced to five to 15 years of jail time after being convicted of terror affiliation, public-institution disruption, and weapon possession.
  • Political dissidents and human rights organizations have accused the Sunni monarchy of weaponizing citizenship for demographic redistribution and the suppression of dissent and rights advocacy among the Shia-majority population.
  • Denaturalization is a controversial practice that leaves many effectively stateless and subject to deportation, with 208 Bahrainis having been denaturalized in 2015 alone.

Read more:
“Manama Deprives Five More Bahrainis of Citizenship” (Tasnim News Agency)
“Bahrain: Stop Deportations of Nationals” (Human Rights Watch)
“Bahrain citizen expulsions ‘chilling’, says Amnesty” (Arabian Business)

(Image Credit: via Human Rights Watch)

Ideology + Affiliation

China News | Writers & Dissidents

More than a dozen detained in Chinese witch-hunt for Xi-critical letter author
  • After a letter calling for President Xi Jinping’s resignation was published by Wujie News, Chinese security forces detained four members of the staff.
  • The secret detentions have expanded to suspected writers and their families, though all have denied writing the letter and knowledge of its origins.
  • After a period of silence, Wujie has returned to publishing, although only articles from the main state-run news agencies now appear.

Read more:
“China Said to Detain Several Over Letter Criticizing Xi” (The New York Times)
“China ‘detained 20 over Xi resignation letter’” (BBC)
“People ‘taken away’ as investigation into letter calling for Xi resignation widens” (The Washington Post)

(Image Credit: Damir Sagolj/Reuters, via The New York Times)

Age, Ideology + Affiliation

Angola News | Youth Activists

1 Comment
Youth activists sentenced in Angola for anti-government demonstrations
  • Seventeen activists were arrested in Luanda last June after an organized reading of Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Democracy, a text promoting non-violent resistance.
  • The group has been sentenced to between two and eight-and-a-half years in jail after conviction on charges of rebellion, planning mass civil disobedience, and producing fake passports.
  • President José Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for 37 years, and despite his pledge to step down in 2018, rampant inflation, public spending cuts, a public health crisis, and human rights infringements have increased anti-government sentiment in the lead-up to elections.

Read more:
“Angola Sends a Rapper and 16 Activists to Prison for Plotting Rebellion” (VICE News)
“Seventeen activists sentenced for rebelling against Angolan government” (Reuters)
“Angola: 17 youth activists jailed for anti-dos Santos rebellion” (Africanews with AFP)

(Image Credit: via Africanews)

Gender, Nationality + Migration

Kuwait News | Zimbabwean Women

As many as 200 Zimbabwean women caught up in Kuwaiti human trafficking scam
  • The women were lured to Kuwait under the pretense of domestic and healthcare employment but found themselves subjected to terrifying work conditions including starvation, violence, and false imprisonment.
  • While 15 of the women have been repatriated, at least 150 remain in Kuwait, caught up in a process that has seen a former Kuwaiti ambassador to Zimbabwe charged with human trafficking.
  • Many Zimbabweans, facing an unfavorable labor market at home, have taken to working abroad, with some having become trapped in employment and scholarship scams by human traffickers.

Read more:
“Zimbabwe: Former Kuwaiti diplomat trafficked 200 women” (International Business Times)
“Zim govt brings back 15 women trafficked to Kuwait – ministry” (News24)
“15 Zimbabwe women home after Kuwait trafficking scam” (Eyewitness News)

Religion + Belief

Pakistan News | Christians

Pakistani Taliban kills scores in Easter suicide attack in Lahore targeting Christians
  • At least 69 have been killed and 300 injured by a suicide attack at a park in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city and a cultural center of the country.
  • Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility and confirmed that Christians had been the target of the attack.
  • The park was packed with families for the Easter holiday, with many of the victims women and children.

Read more:
“Suicide blast kills at least 69 in Lahore park” (The Express Tribune)
“Explosion at Park in Lahore, Pakistan, Kills Dozens” (The New York Times)
“Taliban faction says carried out suicide bomb attack on Pakistan park, says Christians were target” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: AFP, via The Express Tribune)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Brazil News | Indigenous Peoples

Study shows 90% of indigenous peoples in Amazonian Brazil suffering from mercury poisoning
  • Illegal gold mining in northern Brazil has contaminated the water and food sources of at least 19 different Yanomami and Yekuana communities along with Nahua tribes in Peru.
  • In addition to the rise of illegal mining over the last three decades, uncontacted Yanomami communities have faced environmental crises and decades-old controversies over the status of their blood used for genetic testing by American anthropologists.
  • The study was a joint project of Brazilian health foundation Fiocruz, the Hutukara Yanomami Association, the Yekuana Association, and Brazilian NGO Socio-Environmental Institute.

Read more:
“Mercury poisoning of Amazon Indians: alarming new statistics revealed” (Survival)
“90% of Indigenous in Brazil’s Amazon Suffer Mercury Poisoning” (teleSUR English)
“Indigenous tribe’s blood returned to Brazil after decades” (BBC)

(Image Credit: Fiona Watson/Survival)

Nationality + Migration

Belgium News | Foreigners

Brussels bombings claims victims from some 40 countries
  • The IS-connected airport and subway bombings in the Belgian capital has left 31 dead and 316 injured to date.
  • Victims have been identified from countries including China, France, India, the Netherlands, Peru, the U.K., and the U.S.
  • Identification has proven difficult given the attack of heavily international bloodlines in the city, as both the open nature of the attacked spaces and the international effort required to obtain material needed for identification slow efforts.

Read more:
“Brussels bombings claim casualties from over 40 countries” (Reuters)
“Here Are The Victims Of The Brussels Attacks” (BuzzFeed News)
“Brussels attacks victims may not be identified for weeks” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty, via The Guardian)