via Truth-out:
Timothy Dolan, cardinal of New York and head of the Catholic Conference of Bishops, had his prime-time career launched by the pedophile priest scandal. Now, despite efforts to distance himself, his role in pedophile protection may come back to bite him. Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee admitted that, during Dolan's tenure, pedophiles were paid to simply disappear.
In June of 2002, Dolan was appointed archbishop of Milwaukee after his predecessor, Rembert G. Weakland, admitted a confidential settlement of $450,000 to a man who accused Weakland of sexually assaulting him in 1979. In contrast to Weakland, Dolan was a known theological conservative with the trust of the Vatican and, despite questionable management of sexual abuse scandals in his previous position in Saint Louis, he was tasked with cleaning up the mess.
From the start, Dolan positioned himself as a victim's advocate: "... [i]t is impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the situation, and the suffering that victims feel, because I've spent the last four months being with them, crying with them, having them express their anger to me." His response to those tears and anger, however, foreshadowed events of this winter, when Dolan had consistently argued that the church is above the law.
In the case of the pedophile priests, Dolan almost immediately set about exploring financial incentives that would encourage them to step down and fade away into the community. He emphatically denied in 2006 that this was the case. But during subsequent bankruptcy proceedings for the Milwaukee archdiocese, public documents showed that Dolan had discussed payout options with his finance committee as early as 2003. Now email from Julie Wolf, communications director for the archdiocese, confirms that pedophiles were paid up to $20,000 apiece in exchange for quietly relinquishing their positions in the church.
Peter Isely is Midwest director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and a resident of Milwaukee. Isely expressed outrage at the newly confirmed payoffs, which his organization has long alleged despite Dolan's denial. "This is as ludicrous as a school board, instead of firing a teacher for criminal acts against children, calling the police and revoking his license to teach, instead saying that they had to pay the child molester tens of thousands of dollars to hand over their license to the board."
In 2006, serial molester Father Franklyn Becker admitted that he had been paid $10,000 for signing "laicization papers" renouncing priesthood. At the time, Dolan insisted that the payment was to cover health care expenses. "For anyone to assert that this money was a 'payoff' or occurred in exchange for Becker agreeing to leave the priesthood is completely false, preposterous and unjust." Minutes from the 2003 Finance Committee meeting suggest otherwise. Payouts to pedophiles like Becker were to be on top of pension, salary and health care benefits, and had no strings attached.
Since moving to New York and taking over leadership of the Catholic Council of Bishops, Dolan has leveraged his position to advance a set of priorities based on conservative theology, anti-reproductive rights and anti-gay rights in particular. He has been a vocal and visible opponent of comprehensive health care access and marriage equality, arguing, essentially, that religious freedom operates at the level of institutions and trumps civil rights law. His position as cardinal gains him not only the ear of the Catholic laity, but of the White House. Last November, for example, a meeting between Dolan and Obama was described as "one among many meetings with officials from the Catholic Church and the administration."
In this fight, Dolan has had a strong ally in Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. Like Dolan, Donohue appears more concerned with protecting the Catholic church than past and future abuse victims. In March, Donohue said that the Catholic church had been too easy on victims, "too quick to write a check," and should instead "fight them one by one." In 2011, Dolan thanked Donohue for a press release that, among other things, called SNAP a "phony victims group." In January, he scorned a gathering of victims and advocates in Boston as "the professional victims lobby" and "a pitiful bunch of malcontents."
Friday, December 19, 2014
Women imprisoned for miscarriage in El Salvador
via Truth-out:
Seventeen women, ages 19 to 30 years old at their sentencing, remain in prison in El Salvador as international pressure rises to exonerate them. The women were all convicted on the charge of "aggravated homicide" of a newborn. At least one of them underwent a psychiatric evaluation and exhibited intellectual disabilities. Most of them suffered miscarriages, premature births or stillbirths; all of them were poor and without access to prenatal care or obstetrical services; and the majority of them have been sentenced to - and are serving - 30 years in prison. According to Julia Evelyn Martínez, university professor of economics in El Salvador and social advocate, these women have been wrongly accused and convicted of the crime of murder.
"One needs to understand that all of these cases deal with women who have lived and continue to live in situations of extreme financial need, without social support networks or access to quality health services," Martinez said. "Most of them had obstetrical problems during their pregnancies and suffered miscarriages or went through childbirth without either health or medical care. They arrived at public hospitals unconscious, bleeding, in search of assistance, at which point, in flagrant violation of professional ethics, they were reported, tried and sentenced, first for abortion and then for aggravated homicide, forcing them out of hospital and into prison." Martínez goes on to describe the legal maneuvering that led to these women's convictions and is keeping them in prison.
… These women are not accused of abortion, but of aggravated homicide, and therefore are not eligible for pardon. But what they disingenuously forget to say is that all of these women were first accused of abortion, and that in the process of their trial, prosecutors and/or judges made the decision to change the charge to aggravated homicide, in case the prosecution could not present convincing evidence that the deaths of these newborns were intentionally caused by the women.
Abortion is completely banned in El Salvador, no matter what the circumstances. The Constitution was modified in 1999 to include the recognition of life at the moment of conception. According to the Feminist Collective for Local Development in El Salvador (Colectiva Feminista para el desarrollo local de El SalvadorColectiva Feminista para el desarrollo local de El Salvador):
Presently - thanks to the powerful lobby of the Catholic Church, prolife groups and the conservative political right - Salvadoran lawmakers have eliminated all exceptions that would allow a woman to resort to an abortion. Article 133 of the Penal Code in force strenuously condemns any type of abortion. Under the current law, a person who carries out an abortion with the consent of the carrier or a woman who induces an abortion may be condemned to prison with sentences from 2 to 12 years.
Under the law, there is no legal separation between miscarriage or spontaneous abortion and abortion that is induced. So all types of pregnancy interruptions that result in the death of the fetus are potentially considered as homicides. Again from the Collective:
"In addition to the illegality of abortion is the lack of a clear legal definition of what is an abortion and/or pregnancy interruption. Spontaneous abortions and premature deliveries of advanced pregnancies that result in the death of the fetus are considered to have been provoked by the woman and are, therefore, homicides."
In fact, there are many more women in prison for abortion than these 17. According to the Free the 17 Association (Plataforma Libertad para las 17), more than 125 women are imprisoned for that "crime," serving sentences ranging from 11- 40 years.
But for these 17 women, the particulars of their cases and the fact that they were so egregiously mishandled in court should make them eligible for pardon, even under the country's draconian antiabortion laws. The question remains whether the legal switch to accusations of murder can be overcome as well.
Libertad para las 17 and the Feminist Collective have spearheaded the campaign to release the women in El Salvador. In March, they presented a petition to the government requesting a pardon. They call their campaign, "A Flower for the 17" (Una flor por las 17).
Seventeen women, ages 19 to 30 years old at their sentencing, remain in prison in El Salvador as international pressure rises to exonerate them. The women were all convicted on the charge of "aggravated homicide" of a newborn. At least one of them underwent a psychiatric evaluation and exhibited intellectual disabilities. Most of them suffered miscarriages, premature births or stillbirths; all of them were poor and without access to prenatal care or obstetrical services; and the majority of them have been sentenced to - and are serving - 30 years in prison. According to Julia Evelyn Martínez, university professor of economics in El Salvador and social advocate, these women have been wrongly accused and convicted of the crime of murder.
"One needs to understand that all of these cases deal with women who have lived and continue to live in situations of extreme financial need, without social support networks or access to quality health services," Martinez said. "Most of them had obstetrical problems during their pregnancies and suffered miscarriages or went through childbirth without either health or medical care. They arrived at public hospitals unconscious, bleeding, in search of assistance, at which point, in flagrant violation of professional ethics, they were reported, tried and sentenced, first for abortion and then for aggravated homicide, forcing them out of hospital and into prison." Martínez goes on to describe the legal maneuvering that led to these women's convictions and is keeping them in prison.
… These women are not accused of abortion, but of aggravated homicide, and therefore are not eligible for pardon. But what they disingenuously forget to say is that all of these women were first accused of abortion, and that in the process of their trial, prosecutors and/or judges made the decision to change the charge to aggravated homicide, in case the prosecution could not present convincing evidence that the deaths of these newborns were intentionally caused by the women.
Abortion is completely banned in El Salvador, no matter what the circumstances. The Constitution was modified in 1999 to include the recognition of life at the moment of conception. According to the Feminist Collective for Local Development in El Salvador (Colectiva Feminista para el desarrollo local de El SalvadorColectiva Feminista para el desarrollo local de El Salvador):
Presently - thanks to the powerful lobby of the Catholic Church, prolife groups and the conservative political right - Salvadoran lawmakers have eliminated all exceptions that would allow a woman to resort to an abortion. Article 133 of the Penal Code in force strenuously condemns any type of abortion. Under the current law, a person who carries out an abortion with the consent of the carrier or a woman who induces an abortion may be condemned to prison with sentences from 2 to 12 years.
Under the law, there is no legal separation between miscarriage or spontaneous abortion and abortion that is induced. So all types of pregnancy interruptions that result in the death of the fetus are potentially considered as homicides. Again from the Collective:
"In addition to the illegality of abortion is the lack of a clear legal definition of what is an abortion and/or pregnancy interruption. Spontaneous abortions and premature deliveries of advanced pregnancies that result in the death of the fetus are considered to have been provoked by the woman and are, therefore, homicides."
In fact, there are many more women in prison for abortion than these 17. According to the Free the 17 Association (Plataforma Libertad para las 17), more than 125 women are imprisoned for that "crime," serving sentences ranging from 11- 40 years.
But for these 17 women, the particulars of their cases and the fact that they were so egregiously mishandled in court should make them eligible for pardon, even under the country's draconian antiabortion laws. The question remains whether the legal switch to accusations of murder can be overcome as well.
Libertad para las 17 and the Feminist Collective have spearheaded the campaign to release the women in El Salvador. In March, they presented a petition to the government requesting a pardon. They call their campaign, "A Flower for the 17" (Una flor por las 17).
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
CIA torture reports include near drowning via 'rectal rehydration'
source: NBC:
The CIA waterboarded its gold-star detainee, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 183 times in a single month to force him to reveal potential further strikes, according to the Senate's 500-page report Tuesday on CIA interrogation techniques...Within two weeks, the deputy chief of the CIA's interrogation program concluded that the waterboarding of Mohammed "has proven ineffective" and that "the potential for physical harm is far greater with the waterboard than with the other techniques, bringing into question the issue of risk vs. gain," according to the Senate report...Along with the waterboarding, Mohammed was subjected to days of standing sleep deprivation, slapping and "stress positions," the report says. And it says that several times he underwent an emergency medical procedure known as "rectal rehydration," or proctolysis, which standard medical references describe as a way to quickly replace fluids in a patient who is in shock or unconscious...The report matter-of-factly notes that such treatment was "medically unnecessary" for Mohammed, whom it describes as having been doused with, submerged in or force-fed water hundreds of times. After one session, the medical officer present reported that Mohammed's gastric contents were "so diluted by water" that Mohammed was in danger of water intoxication. The medical officer later wrote that "in the new technique we are basically doing a series of near drownings."
more, via The Daily Beast:
The Most Gruesome Moments in the CIA ‘Torture Report’
The CIA’s rendition, interrogation, and detention programs were even more nightmarish than you could imagine.
Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold, one suspect essentially froze to death. The Senate Intelligence Committee is finally releasing its review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs. And it is brutal.
Here are some of the most gruesome moments of detainee abuse from a summary of the report, obtained by The Daily Beast:...Contrary to CIA’s description to the Department of Justice, the Senate report says that the waterboarding was physically harmful, leading to convulsions and vomiting. During one session, detainee Abu Zubaydah became “completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded at least 183 times, which the Senate report describes as escalating into a “series of near drownings.”
The Dungeon-Like ‘Salt Pit’
Opened in Sept. 2002, this “poorly managed” detention facility was the second site opened by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks. The Senate report refers to it by the pseudonym Cobalt, but details of what happened there indicate that it’s a notorious “black site” in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit. Although the facility kept few formal records, the committee concluded that untrained CIA operatives conducted unauthorized, unsupervised interrogation there. A Senate aide who briefed reporters on the condition that he not be identified said that the Cobalt site was run by a junior officer with no relevant experience, and that this person had “issues” in his background that should have disqualified him from working for the CIA at all. The aide didn’t specify what those issues were, but suggested that the CIA should have flagged them. The committee found that some employees at the site lacked proper training and had “histories of violence and mistreatment of others.”
Standing on Broken Legs
In November 2002, a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to the floor died, apparently from hypothermia. This case appears similar to the that of Gul Rahman, who died of similarly explained causes at an Afghan site known as the “Salt Pit,” also in November 2002. The site was also called “The Dark Prison” by former captives. The aide said that the Cobalt site was was dark, like a dungeon, and that experts who visited the site said they’d never seen an American prison where people were kept in such conditions. The facility was so dark in some places that guard had to wear head lamps, while other rooms were flooded with bright lights and white noise to disorient detainees.
At the Cobalt facility, the CIA also forced some detainees who had broken feet or legs to stand in stress-inducing positions, despite having earlier pledged that they wouldn’t subject those wounded individuals to treatment that might exacerbate their injuries...The CIA instructed personnel at the site that the interrogation of Zubaydah, who’d been shot during his capture, should take “precedence over his medical care,” the committee found, leading to an infection in a bullet wound incurred during his capture. Zubaydah lost his left eye while in custody. The CIA’s instructions also ran contrary to how it told the Justice Department the prisoner would be treated...At least five detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration,” without any documented medical need. “While IV infusion is safe and effective,” one officer wrote, rectal hydration could be used as a form of behavior control...Others were deprived of sleep, which could involve staying awake for as long as 180 hours—sometimes standing, sometimes with their hands shackled above their heads. Some detainees were forced to walk around naked, or shackled with their hands above their heads. In other instances, naked detainees were hooded and dragged up and down corridors while subject to physical abuse...While the CIA has said publicly that it held about 100 detainees, the committee found that at least 119 people were in the agency’s custody.
“The fact is they lost track and they didn’t really know who they were holding,” the Senate aide said, noting that investigators found emails in which CIA personnel were “surprised” to find some people in their custody. The CIA also determined that at least 26 of its detainees were wrongfully held. CIA officers threatened to harm detainees’ children, sexually abuse their mothers, and “cut [a detainee’s] mother’s throat.” In addition, several detainees were led to believe they would die in custody, with one told he would leave in a coffin-shaped box. Detainees wouldn’t see their day in court because “we can never let the world know what I have done to you,” one interrogator said.
Sexual Assault by Interrogators
Officers in the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program included individuals who the committee said, “among other things, had engaged in inappropriate detainee interrogations, had workplace anger management issues, and had reportedly admitted to sexual assault.”
The CIA waterboarded its gold-star detainee, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 183 times in a single month to force him to reveal potential further strikes, according to the Senate's 500-page report Tuesday on CIA interrogation techniques...Within two weeks, the deputy chief of the CIA's interrogation program concluded that the waterboarding of Mohammed "has proven ineffective" and that "the potential for physical harm is far greater with the waterboard than with the other techniques, bringing into question the issue of risk vs. gain," according to the Senate report...Along with the waterboarding, Mohammed was subjected to days of standing sleep deprivation, slapping and "stress positions," the report says. And it says that several times he underwent an emergency medical procedure known as "rectal rehydration," or proctolysis, which standard medical references describe as a way to quickly replace fluids in a patient who is in shock or unconscious...The report matter-of-factly notes that such treatment was "medically unnecessary" for Mohammed, whom it describes as having been doused with, submerged in or force-fed water hundreds of times. After one session, the medical officer present reported that Mohammed's gastric contents were "so diluted by water" that Mohammed was in danger of water intoxication. The medical officer later wrote that "in the new technique we are basically doing a series of near drownings."
more, via The Daily Beast:
The Most Gruesome Moments in the CIA ‘Torture Report’
The CIA’s rendition, interrogation, and detention programs were even more nightmarish than you could imagine.
Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold, one suspect essentially froze to death. The Senate Intelligence Committee is finally releasing its review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation programs. And it is brutal.
Here are some of the most gruesome moments of detainee abuse from a summary of the report, obtained by The Daily Beast:...Contrary to CIA’s description to the Department of Justice, the Senate report says that the waterboarding was physically harmful, leading to convulsions and vomiting. During one session, detainee Abu Zubaydah became “completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded at least 183 times, which the Senate report describes as escalating into a “series of near drownings.”
The Dungeon-Like ‘Salt Pit’
Opened in Sept. 2002, this “poorly managed” detention facility was the second site opened by the CIA after the 9/11 attacks. The Senate report refers to it by the pseudonym Cobalt, but details of what happened there indicate that it’s a notorious “black site” in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit. Although the facility kept few formal records, the committee concluded that untrained CIA operatives conducted unauthorized, unsupervised interrogation there. A Senate aide who briefed reporters on the condition that he not be identified said that the Cobalt site was run by a junior officer with no relevant experience, and that this person had “issues” in his background that should have disqualified him from working for the CIA at all. The aide didn’t specify what those issues were, but suggested that the CIA should have flagged them. The committee found that some employees at the site lacked proper training and had “histories of violence and mistreatment of others.”
Standing on Broken Legs
In November 2002, a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to the floor died, apparently from hypothermia. This case appears similar to the that of Gul Rahman, who died of similarly explained causes at an Afghan site known as the “Salt Pit,” also in November 2002. The site was also called “The Dark Prison” by former captives. The aide said that the Cobalt site was was dark, like a dungeon, and that experts who visited the site said they’d never seen an American prison where people were kept in such conditions. The facility was so dark in some places that guard had to wear head lamps, while other rooms were flooded with bright lights and white noise to disorient detainees.
At the Cobalt facility, the CIA also forced some detainees who had broken feet or legs to stand in stress-inducing positions, despite having earlier pledged that they wouldn’t subject those wounded individuals to treatment that might exacerbate their injuries...The CIA instructed personnel at the site that the interrogation of Zubaydah, who’d been shot during his capture, should take “precedence over his medical care,” the committee found, leading to an infection in a bullet wound incurred during his capture. Zubaydah lost his left eye while in custody. The CIA’s instructions also ran contrary to how it told the Justice Department the prisoner would be treated...At least five detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration,” without any documented medical need. “While IV infusion is safe and effective,” one officer wrote, rectal hydration could be used as a form of behavior control...Others were deprived of sleep, which could involve staying awake for as long as 180 hours—sometimes standing, sometimes with their hands shackled above their heads. Some detainees were forced to walk around naked, or shackled with their hands above their heads. In other instances, naked detainees were hooded and dragged up and down corridors while subject to physical abuse...While the CIA has said publicly that it held about 100 detainees, the committee found that at least 119 people were in the agency’s custody.
“The fact is they lost track and they didn’t really know who they were holding,” the Senate aide said, noting that investigators found emails in which CIA personnel were “surprised” to find some people in their custody. The CIA also determined that at least 26 of its detainees were wrongfully held. CIA officers threatened to harm detainees’ children, sexually abuse their mothers, and “cut [a detainee’s] mother’s throat.” In addition, several detainees were led to believe they would die in custody, with one told he would leave in a coffin-shaped box. Detainees wouldn’t see their day in court because “we can never let the world know what I have done to you,” one interrogator said.
Sexual Assault by Interrogators
Officers in the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program included individuals who the committee said, “among other things, had engaged in inappropriate detainee interrogations, had workplace anger management issues, and had reportedly admitted to sexual assault.”
Sunday, December 7, 2014
UK Member of Parliament 'was at snuff film lad's murder'
This post contains details that may be inappropriate for sensitive readers.
via The Express:
The existence of “snuff” pornography, in which the victim is killed on camera, has long been rumoured, but until last year no police officer had ever seen one. [This statement is incorrect. Snuff films were also discovered in the UK 14 years ago, and that case also involved Russian associates, just like this one.] A film seized during a raid on a Latvian man’s house in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, shows a teenage girl begging a man not to hurt her before she is raped, then strangled with a wire causing her to foam at the mouth and her eyes to roll back into her head. She is then wrapped tightly in a plastic sheet and dragged from the room. The police officer leading the inquiry was convinced she was murdered.
The judge who sentenced Andreas Bauminis, 22, to eight months in jail for possessing that film and other material in March also said she was probably killed. From her accent, police believe the girl to be American, but despite having images of her and her apparent killer for 15 months, they have done nothing to help trace them. Neither Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), which is part of the National Crime Agency (NCA), nor any US agency such as the FBI have yet been sent the video. Both CEOP and the US agencies have powerful facial recognition software. Campaigning Labour MP Tom Watson said the revelations highlighted a serious failure in the UK’s policing of child pornography....Mr Watson said: “If the view of the judge and the police in this case is true, then Britain's police have sat on evidence of a child murder for over a year....The raid on Bauminis’s house in February 2013 came after a tip-off from the Russian Interior Ministry, which had monitored an upload of child pornography from a UK-based computer address.
The Russian government contacted CEOP, which traced the computer to a house in Skelmersdale.When Lancashire Police raided the home, they discovered an “enormous” computer that one officer said resembled “something out of a submarine”. Sick films, including Japanese cartoons depicting sexual abuse of children by adults and animals, were found. However, it was the other 20-minute video featuring a white, blonde girl of about 14 years of age and made about two years ago that shook even hardened officers. Detective Constable Edward Wenham, who led the investigation, said it was the “worst thing I had seen by a country mile”. He said: “My firm belief was this child was definitely killed.
“A man in his 40s was decorating; he had a goatee beard and you could see his face quiet clearly. “The young girl came into the room and asked him for money to go to cheerleading camp. “The girl was white. It was apparent that the man was either her father or stepfather. “The man began to shout obscenities, then he sexually abused her before strangling her and sexually abusing her again. “After that he laid out a clear plastic sheet and laid the body in this, then wrapped it tightly around her. It took about three minutes for this. I was convinced this was not acting and that the girl was dead. If she had been play-acting when the plastic was wrapped around her face she could not have been able to keep so still. If it was acting, it was better than an Oscar-winning performance: her eyes didn’t blink or move at all. Other horrific videos showing even younger girls being abused were also found, which detectives believe were made in Russia."
Sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court in March, Judge Dennis Watson QC said while it was difficult to be certain that the girl had died on camera “all the evidence points to the fact that she almost certainly did”.
He imposed a prison sentence of eight months and Bauminis could be released this summer. Mike Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Unit, described the seizure of the “snuff” video as “incredibly important” because it appeared to verify long held suspicions such material existed. He said it was vital to comb through Bauminis’s contacts. “You have to work on the presumption he’ll be part of a wider network of paedophiles they’ll be sharing child pornography between them."
more, via Aanirfan:
It is being reported that a young boy was murdered during a torture session filmed at Amsterdam's Blue Boy club. There is evidence that a UK Member of Parliament was present when the boy was killed. UK Police are currently investigating the Member of Parliament's link to the snuff movie.
This child murder is linked to Warwick Spinks who is linked to the Elm Guest House boy brothel in London which is linked to the UK security services. Around 1969, Warwick Spinks was caught on secret camera offering to supply a video in which a 10 year old boy was killed and another featuring the horrific abuse of a young boy. The untouchable "Warwick Spinks ... built businesses and bought properties in South Africa, Namibia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, France and England..."
It has been reported that a number of top Conservative Members of the UK parliament took young boys to Holland for the purpose of child sexual abuse. A source said: "Officers were told Spinks knew the MP and arranged a tour to Amsterdam. While there he went to the Blue Boy bar, where Spinks was running a brothel.
"The MP was said to have been present when a boy died during an orgy which was being filmed."
Award-winning journalist Nick Davies wrote about the grim mysteries of snuff movies. [The following passage quotes Davies]:
Alan Williams, the "Welsh Witch", and Londoner Warwick Spinks managed boy brothels in Amsterdam
Williams boasted of the day in south Wales when he had seen a 10-year-old boy on his bike, grabbed him, raped him, and, when he cried, strangled him. From Boys Clubs 21, he organised the importing of boys from Cardiff and London, inflicting intense violence on any who defied him. Spinks had been running a mail order pornography business from Brighton, before he moved to Amsterdam. ..reportedly sections of the British police said they lacked the money to investigate what was happening in Europe...In the UK, it has been alleged that dangerous child abusers held key positions in certain local government authorities, such as Islington in London...It has become clear that all of the above child abuse can be linked to the CIA, and its friends in Mossad, MI6, MI5...If the CIA wants to control the boss of MI6, or the Secretary General of NATO, or a top Hollywood entertainer, or the President of the United States, or a member of a royal family, or a newspaper editor, or a key employee of Google, it can supply them with young girls or boys.
In order to get the system in place, the CIA has to know where children will be available for abuse.
A guide book is helpful. In 1964, an American called Bob Damron published a book listing gay bars.
The CIA is reported to have photographs of certain top foreign dignitaries visiting such bars.
From 1969/1970 onwards you could buy the Spartacus guide book which listed the child brothels all around the world from Port Au Prince to Pattaya. Now, the big question is, how on earth did the Spartacus editors know the details of all these brothels around the world? The people most likely to know all the details were the CIA and its friends. The CIA has been linked to child abuse and child murder worldwide.
The Spartacus Club and Spartacus International were run from Amsterdam by John Stamford, a former Roman Catholic priest from the UK. In 1995, Stamford died mysteriously in prison in Belgium, aged 56.
Spartacus members got a '10% Discount' at the Elm Guest House boy brothel in London. Peter Glencross, commercial manager of Spartacus, helped persuade Carole Kasir to turn her Elm Guest House into a boy brothel.
Peter Glencross reportedly set out to create a network of child brothels for Spartacus members.
Customers of the Elm Guest house included members of MI5 and a cabinet minister, reportedly.
also relevant, via Wikipedia. This entry was poorly translated from German by Google Translate.
John D. Stamford (* May 20-June 21 [1] in 1939 in Lancashire (England); † 1999 ? in Belgium) was a priest and first editor of the internationally marketed Spartacus International Gay Guide .
Origin
Stamford was a Catholic priest in Brighton, [2] before he has taught as a teacher at a Catholic Sunday School in Lancashire. Later he operated in Brighton a guest house. 1967 saw the 28-year-old as JDS Publications, 46 Preston Street, Brighton with the publication of the monthly gay Spartacus Magazine in DinA5 format and founded in 1968 [1] the Spartacus International Gay Guide for all continents, which as of March 1970 in Sussex appeared ,
1971/1972 Stamford moved to Amsterdam. The published at EUR Spartacus 3rd edition in December 1973 in Amsterdam, designed as a guide Spartacus International Gay Guide brought - similar to its competitors Places of Interest , Bob Damron's Address Book , Gayellow pages the target group of gays in the focus of the marketing departments of the international tourism industry as wealthy individuals. The addresses listed - especially in suffering persecution countries - were often the focal point of local and transnational political and non-political groupings of homosexuals. In the more developed countries Stamford served multilingual publication as a model for numerous national and regional guide, the publications from the rear of series such. B. Berlin from behind from the Bruno Gmunder Verlag . Stamford, however, was also accused of his publications promoting prostitution of minors. Different states put pressure on the Dutch government to lay Stamford crafts [???]. [3]
Publishers
In Amsterdam, published Stamford other publications, the magazine Spartacus Traveller and the pedophile -oriented Pan Magazine [2] and pornography in publishing The Coltsfoot Press, temporarily renamed as Department of Spartacus-Verlag. [4] He bought a luxurious business Villa in Amsterdam Subdivision Baarns which was established in 1986 seized due to multi-million dollar tax liabilities. In the subsequent auction numerous personal items of Stamford were lost. A former employee Stamford doubted Stamford knew what was going on. Stamford accuses other employees to have cheated him out of tens of thousands of guilders...1987 quotes the German language magazine Gay journal Dutch newspaper De Gay Krant that Stamford in Holland would wanted for illegal boys trade. [7]
sources:
John D. Stamford: 'Spartacus Gay Guide', 1975, Seite 12
Event-Magazin (Londoner Programmzeitschrift), David Roper: Good Man Guide , Buchbesprechung, 29. April 1982
Zeitschrift Gay Journal : Ist Stamford noch zu retten? Nr. 7, Juli 1985, basierend auf Artikeln der niederländischen Zeitung The Gay Krant .
Werbung in der 1985er Ausgabe des Spartacus International Gay Guide
Zeitschrift DU&ICH , Wilfried D. Schwarze: In letzter Minute. Mit der Vertragsunterzeichnung am 1. Dezember 1986 durch Bruno Gmünder (Foto links) und John D. Stamford (Foto rechts) ist die Zukunft des Spartacus gesichert , Januar 1987, S. 63.
Peter Thommen, Blog des schwulen Buchladens ARCADOS: Spartacus – Guide durch eine „schwule Welt“? November 2006
Gay Journal: Stamford im Visier , 1987, Nr. 4/5, S. 15.
via The Express:
The existence of “snuff” pornography, in which the victim is killed on camera, has long been rumoured, but until last year no police officer had ever seen one. [This statement is incorrect. Snuff films were also discovered in the UK 14 years ago, and that case also involved Russian associates, just like this one.] A film seized during a raid on a Latvian man’s house in Skelmersdale, Lancashire, shows a teenage girl begging a man not to hurt her before she is raped, then strangled with a wire causing her to foam at the mouth and her eyes to roll back into her head. She is then wrapped tightly in a plastic sheet and dragged from the room. The police officer leading the inquiry was convinced she was murdered.
The judge who sentenced Andreas Bauminis, 22, to eight months in jail for possessing that film and other material in March also said she was probably killed. From her accent, police believe the girl to be American, but despite having images of her and her apparent killer for 15 months, they have done nothing to help trace them. Neither Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), which is part of the National Crime Agency (NCA), nor any US agency such as the FBI have yet been sent the video. Both CEOP and the US agencies have powerful facial recognition software. Campaigning Labour MP Tom Watson said the revelations highlighted a serious failure in the UK’s policing of child pornography....Mr Watson said: “If the view of the judge and the police in this case is true, then Britain's police have sat on evidence of a child murder for over a year....The raid on Bauminis’s house in February 2013 came after a tip-off from the Russian Interior Ministry, which had monitored an upload of child pornography from a UK-based computer address.
The Russian government contacted CEOP, which traced the computer to a house in Skelmersdale.When Lancashire Police raided the home, they discovered an “enormous” computer that one officer said resembled “something out of a submarine”. Sick films, including Japanese cartoons depicting sexual abuse of children by adults and animals, were found. However, it was the other 20-minute video featuring a white, blonde girl of about 14 years of age and made about two years ago that shook even hardened officers. Detective Constable Edward Wenham, who led the investigation, said it was the “worst thing I had seen by a country mile”. He said: “My firm belief was this child was definitely killed.
“A man in his 40s was decorating; he had a goatee beard and you could see his face quiet clearly. “The young girl came into the room and asked him for money to go to cheerleading camp. “The girl was white. It was apparent that the man was either her father or stepfather. “The man began to shout obscenities, then he sexually abused her before strangling her and sexually abusing her again. “After that he laid out a clear plastic sheet and laid the body in this, then wrapped it tightly around her. It took about three minutes for this. I was convinced this was not acting and that the girl was dead. If she had been play-acting when the plastic was wrapped around her face she could not have been able to keep so still. If it was acting, it was better than an Oscar-winning performance: her eyes didn’t blink or move at all. Other horrific videos showing even younger girls being abused were also found, which detectives believe were made in Russia."
Sentencing at Liverpool Crown Court in March, Judge Dennis Watson QC said while it was difficult to be certain that the girl had died on camera “all the evidence points to the fact that she almost certainly did”.
He imposed a prison sentence of eight months and Bauminis could be released this summer. Mike Hames, the former head of Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Unit, described the seizure of the “snuff” video as “incredibly important” because it appeared to verify long held suspicions such material existed. He said it was vital to comb through Bauminis’s contacts. “You have to work on the presumption he’ll be part of a wider network of paedophiles they’ll be sharing child pornography between them."
more, via Aanirfan:
It is being reported that a young boy was murdered during a torture session filmed at Amsterdam's Blue Boy club. There is evidence that a UK Member of Parliament was present when the boy was killed. UK Police are currently investigating the Member of Parliament's link to the snuff movie.
This child murder is linked to Warwick Spinks who is linked to the Elm Guest House boy brothel in London which is linked to the UK security services. Around 1969, Warwick Spinks was caught on secret camera offering to supply a video in which a 10 year old boy was killed and another featuring the horrific abuse of a young boy. The untouchable "Warwick Spinks ... built businesses and bought properties in South Africa, Namibia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, France and England..."
It has been reported that a number of top Conservative Members of the UK parliament took young boys to Holland for the purpose of child sexual abuse. A source said: "Officers were told Spinks knew the MP and arranged a tour to Amsterdam. While there he went to the Blue Boy bar, where Spinks was running a brothel.
"The MP was said to have been present when a boy died during an orgy which was being filmed."
Award-winning journalist Nick Davies wrote about the grim mysteries of snuff movies. [The following passage quotes Davies]:
"One boy had simply been shot through the head", Terry said. "He had been causing trouble and had been executed in front of several paedophiles." Another, he believed, had been thrown into one of the canals. "But the one about whom he spoke the most was a boy who had been tortured and killed in the most painful fashion in the course of producing a pornographic video."
Alan Williams, the "Welsh Witch", and Londoner Warwick Spinks managed boy brothels in Amsterdam
Williams boasted of the day in south Wales when he had seen a 10-year-old boy on his bike, grabbed him, raped him, and, when he cried, strangled him. From Boys Clubs 21, he organised the importing of boys from Cardiff and London, inflicting intense violence on any who defied him. Spinks had been running a mail order pornography business from Brighton, before he moved to Amsterdam. ..reportedly sections of the British police said they lacked the money to investigate what was happening in Europe...In the UK, it has been alleged that dangerous child abusers held key positions in certain local government authorities, such as Islington in London...It has become clear that all of the above child abuse can be linked to the CIA, and its friends in Mossad, MI6, MI5...If the CIA wants to control the boss of MI6, or the Secretary General of NATO, or a top Hollywood entertainer, or the President of the United States, or a member of a royal family, or a newspaper editor, or a key employee of Google, it can supply them with young girls or boys.
In order to get the system in place, the CIA has to know where children will be available for abuse.
A guide book is helpful. In 1964, an American called Bob Damron published a book listing gay bars.
The CIA is reported to have photographs of certain top foreign dignitaries visiting such bars.
From 1969/1970 onwards you could buy the Spartacus guide book which listed the child brothels all around the world from Port Au Prince to Pattaya. Now, the big question is, how on earth did the Spartacus editors know the details of all these brothels around the world? The people most likely to know all the details were the CIA and its friends. The CIA has been linked to child abuse and child murder worldwide.
The Spartacus Club and Spartacus International were run from Amsterdam by John Stamford, a former Roman Catholic priest from the UK. In 1995, Stamford died mysteriously in prison in Belgium, aged 56.
Spartacus members got a '10% Discount' at the Elm Guest House boy brothel in London. Peter Glencross, commercial manager of Spartacus, helped persuade Carole Kasir to turn her Elm Guest House into a boy brothel.
Peter Glencross reportedly set out to create a network of child brothels for Spartacus members.
Customers of the Elm Guest house included members of MI5 and a cabinet minister, reportedly.
also relevant, via Wikipedia. This entry was poorly translated from German by Google Translate.
John D. Stamford (* May 20-June 21 [1] in 1939 in Lancashire (England); † 1999 ? in Belgium) was a priest and first editor of the internationally marketed Spartacus International Gay Guide .
Origin
Stamford was a Catholic priest in Brighton, [2] before he has taught as a teacher at a Catholic Sunday School in Lancashire. Later he operated in Brighton a guest house. 1967 saw the 28-year-old as JDS Publications, 46 Preston Street, Brighton with the publication of the monthly gay Spartacus Magazine in DinA5 format and founded in 1968 [1] the Spartacus International Gay Guide for all continents, which as of March 1970 in Sussex appeared ,
1971/1972 Stamford moved to Amsterdam. The published at EUR Spartacus 3rd edition in December 1973 in Amsterdam, designed as a guide Spartacus International Gay Guide brought - similar to its competitors Places of Interest , Bob Damron's Address Book , Gayellow pages the target group of gays in the focus of the marketing departments of the international tourism industry as wealthy individuals. The addresses listed - especially in suffering persecution countries - were often the focal point of local and transnational political and non-political groupings of homosexuals. In the more developed countries Stamford served multilingual publication as a model for numerous national and regional guide, the publications from the rear of series such. B. Berlin from behind from the Bruno Gmunder Verlag . Stamford, however, was also accused of his publications promoting prostitution of minors. Different states put pressure on the Dutch government to lay Stamford crafts [???]. [3]
Publishers
In Amsterdam, published Stamford other publications, the magazine Spartacus Traveller and the pedophile -oriented Pan Magazine [2] and pornography in publishing The Coltsfoot Press, temporarily renamed as Department of Spartacus-Verlag. [4] He bought a luxurious business Villa in Amsterdam Subdivision Baarns which was established in 1986 seized due to multi-million dollar tax liabilities. In the subsequent auction numerous personal items of Stamford were lost. A former employee Stamford doubted Stamford knew what was going on. Stamford accuses other employees to have cheated him out of tens of thousands of guilders...1987 quotes the German language magazine Gay journal Dutch newspaper De Gay Krant that Stamford in Holland would wanted for illegal boys trade. [7]
sources:
John D. Stamford: 'Spartacus Gay Guide', 1975, Seite 12
Event-Magazin (Londoner Programmzeitschrift), David Roper: Good Man Guide , Buchbesprechung, 29. April 1982
Zeitschrift Gay Journal : Ist Stamford noch zu retten? Nr. 7, Juli 1985, basierend auf Artikeln der niederländischen Zeitung The Gay Krant .
Werbung in der 1985er Ausgabe des Spartacus International Gay Guide
Zeitschrift DU&ICH , Wilfried D. Schwarze: In letzter Minute. Mit der Vertragsunterzeichnung am 1. Dezember 1986 durch Bruno Gmünder (Foto links) und John D. Stamford (Foto rechts) ist die Zukunft des Spartacus gesichert , Januar 1987, S. 63.
Peter Thommen, Blog des schwulen Buchladens ARCADOS: Spartacus – Guide durch eine „schwule Welt“? November 2006
Gay Journal: Stamford im Visier , 1987, Nr. 4/5, S. 15.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Ritual abuse at Satyananda Yoga Ashram
via ABC:
A young girl was raped by the head of a global yoga movement, Satyananda Sawaswati, on his visit to a New South Wales ashram, an inquiry has heard. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing into the Satyananda Yoga Ashram at Mangrove Mountain on the state's central coast was also told a group of swamis abused the girl in a ritual setting. The girl, known as APR in the hearing, moved to the ashram with her mother, father and sister in the late 1970s. The abuse started when she was three years old.
"The ashram was the kind of place that if you scream, no-one comes," she said. At the ashram, family relationships were broken down and parents separated from their children, who were routinely beaten, sexually abused and deprived of adequate medical treatment and food. Attendees were referred to as "Innamtes" by the head of the movement, handed their assets to the ashram, shaved their heads, and wore orange robes. "I feel the entire ashram was groomed into a place of powerlessness," APR said. "My mother, who was a beautiful, strong and creative woman, was somehow brought to the point where she couldn't trust her ability to make decisions." APR recalls that when she was no more than six years old she was taken into a dark room lit with candles. There were five or six male swamis in the room, some of whom she recognised from the ashram.
During the ritual, she was held down and raped by Ahkandananda, the India director and spiritual leader of the ashram. "While he was doing that, Ahkandananda cut the skin between my breasts with a knife and then licked the blood. He threw it into the fire," she said. APR said she was then assaulted by several of the men and still has a scar down her chest.
Satyananda still worshipped as a guru
Founder Satyananda Sawaswati was the head of the organisation until 1988 and is still worshipped as a guru.
APR said that on one of his visits to the central coast ashram he raped her during an initiation ceremony. "For years I have pushed away the thought that he had raped me, as my entire childhood I was raised to believe he was like God, pure love," she said. The allegation follows earlier testimony given by another former child resident of the Satyananda Yoga Ashram, Bhakti Manning, that Satyananda abused her in India.
APR said she was also abused at night by older boys at the ashram when she was five or six years old. She said the boys would zip her sleeping bags to theirs and perform sexual acts with her, and that this happened to other girls as well. "I could see other girls in the room were also being put in the bags like I was," she said.
Pornography and drugs given to children
APR said pornographic magazines were put in the children's section of the ashram's library and that adults would give children a hallucinogenic drug called mungen brought from India. "The adults used to egg us on to take bigger and bigger hits of it until we passed out on the floor, and no-one ever stopped this," she said.
APR detailed the horrific effects of the ashram on her life. She suffers from chronic insomnia, flashbacks, and regressions to her childhood when she does not know who she is. She said the effects of her upbringing really hit home when she had her own daughter. "I would hold this tiny girl in my arms and try to understand how anyone could take advantage of someone so small," she said.
Parents 'need to own the choice they made'
The royal commission is expected to hear from a number of former adult residents and parents over the next week. "I want to see the ashram actually protect children and not just be a guru fan club where people leave their brains at the door," APR said. She told the inquiry she wanted the ashram shut down and said the adults that were there at the time were partly to blame for the abuse. "The adults need to own the choice they made - they were the ones that put the kids in that situation," she said.
"They were the ones who stayed, and by staying, made it impossible for us to leave."
A young girl was raped by the head of a global yoga movement, Satyananda Sawaswati, on his visit to a New South Wales ashram, an inquiry has heard. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing into the Satyananda Yoga Ashram at Mangrove Mountain on the state's central coast was also told a group of swamis abused the girl in a ritual setting. The girl, known as APR in the hearing, moved to the ashram with her mother, father and sister in the late 1970s. The abuse started when she was three years old.
"The ashram was the kind of place that if you scream, no-one comes," she said. At the ashram, family relationships were broken down and parents separated from their children, who were routinely beaten, sexually abused and deprived of adequate medical treatment and food. Attendees were referred to as "Innamtes" by the head of the movement, handed their assets to the ashram, shaved their heads, and wore orange robes. "I feel the entire ashram was groomed into a place of powerlessness," APR said. "My mother, who was a beautiful, strong and creative woman, was somehow brought to the point where she couldn't trust her ability to make decisions." APR recalls that when she was no more than six years old she was taken into a dark room lit with candles. There were five or six male swamis in the room, some of whom she recognised from the ashram.
During the ritual, she was held down and raped by Ahkandananda, the India director and spiritual leader of the ashram. "While he was doing that, Ahkandananda cut the skin between my breasts with a knife and then licked the blood. He threw it into the fire," she said. APR said she was then assaulted by several of the men and still has a scar down her chest.
Satyananda still worshipped as a guru
Founder Satyananda Sawaswati was the head of the organisation until 1988 and is still worshipped as a guru.
APR said that on one of his visits to the central coast ashram he raped her during an initiation ceremony. "For years I have pushed away the thought that he had raped me, as my entire childhood I was raised to believe he was like God, pure love," she said. The allegation follows earlier testimony given by another former child resident of the Satyananda Yoga Ashram, Bhakti Manning, that Satyananda abused her in India.
APR said she was also abused at night by older boys at the ashram when she was five or six years old. She said the boys would zip her sleeping bags to theirs and perform sexual acts with her, and that this happened to other girls as well. "I could see other girls in the room were also being put in the bags like I was," she said.
Pornography and drugs given to children
APR said pornographic magazines were put in the children's section of the ashram's library and that adults would give children a hallucinogenic drug called mungen brought from India. "The adults used to egg us on to take bigger and bigger hits of it until we passed out on the floor, and no-one ever stopped this," she said.
APR detailed the horrific effects of the ashram on her life. She suffers from chronic insomnia, flashbacks, and regressions to her childhood when she does not know who she is. She said the effects of her upbringing really hit home when she had her own daughter. "I would hold this tiny girl in my arms and try to understand how anyone could take advantage of someone so small," she said.
Parents 'need to own the choice they made'
The royal commission is expected to hear from a number of former adult residents and parents over the next week. "I want to see the ashram actually protect children and not just be a guru fan club where people leave their brains at the door," APR said. She told the inquiry she wanted the ashram shut down and said the adults that were there at the time were partly to blame for the abuse. "The adults need to own the choice they made - they were the ones that put the kids in that situation," she said.
"They were the ones who stayed, and by staying, made it impossible for us to leave."
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
"Sex scandals" a cover for murder and torture?
via Anonymous:
The biggest story of our generation is unfolding in the
UK to near complete silence in the international corporate media. The
UK media that cover it at all depict it as a ‘sex scandal’ committed by
‘child lovers’.
What the UK media depicts as “child sex” has left
children missing the lower half of their bodies. These so-called ‘sex
scandals’ involve children provided for torture as bait to blackmail
political opponents in Northern Ireland. The UK has open files on 200
missing boys from 1977 and 1983 The investigation has so far involved a
huge circle of UK establishment from media, politicians, police and
intelligence, known to police as The Untouchables. There are
international ties being ignored.
To the people of the UK, your ruling classes are
preying on you. Not just in the ways you always knew they were. Our
friends in the UK, just like our friends in Gabon, have a political
class that is torturing and murdering their children and mutilating
their bodies. Unlike in Gabon, the UK media is following the direction
of the Paedophile Information Exchange and telling you these people are
child lovers who need understanding and tolerance...These people feed
off the agony of others. They cause
wars and destruction during their working hours and they torture and
murder children as recreation...
The CSA inquiry in the UK is an attempt to depict a powerful cult as a
string of isolated incidents of “sex abuse”. The complicit UK media is
running a huge propaganda campaign to conflate torture and murder with
“paedophilia” and call for understanding of
“paedophilia”. This is not a group of sad paedophiles who need help and
understanding. This is a torture and death cult with a powerful global
human trafficking network. We demand that torture and murder be called
torture and murder, not sex. This is an international cult and needs to
be investigated as one, not simply as an endless series of isolated
incidents confined to the UK. We call upon our comrades globally to help
us investigate and demand an end to to the trafficking networks with
arrests at the top not just the bottom. We demand an end to human
trafficking and abuse complicity worldwide.
The biggest story of our generation is unfolding in the
UK to near complete silence in the international corporate media. The
UK media that cover it at all depict it as a ‘sex scandal’ committed by
‘child lovers’.
What the UK media depicts as “child sex” has left
children missing the lower half of their bodies. These so-called ‘sex
scandals’ involve children provided for torture as bait to blackmail
political opponents in Northern Ireland. The UK has open files on 200
missing boys from 1977 and 1983 The investigation has so far involved a
huge circle of UK establishment from media, politicians, police and
intelligence, known to police as The Untouchables. There are
international ties being ignored.
To the people of the UK, your ruling classes are
preying on you. Not just in the ways you always knew they were. Our
friends in the UK, just like our friends in Gabon, have a political
class that is torturing and murdering their children and mutilating
their bodies. Unlike in Gabon, the UK media is following the direction
of the Paedophile Information Exchange and telling you these people are
child lovers who need understanding and tolerance...These people feed
off the agony of others. They cause
wars and destruction during their working hours and they torture and
murder children as recreation...
The CSA inquiry in the UK is an attempt to depict a powerful cult as a
string of isolated incidents of “sex abuse”. The complicit UK media is
running a huge propaganda campaign to conflate torture and murder with
“paedophilia” and call for understanding of
“paedophilia”. This is not a group of sad paedophiles who need help and
understanding. This is a torture and death cult with a powerful global
human trafficking network. We demand that torture and murder be called
torture and murder, not sex. This is an international cult and needs to
be investigated as one, not simply as an endless series of isolated
incidents confined to the UK. We call upon our comrades globally to help
us investigate and demand an end to to the trafficking networks with
arrests at the top not just the bottom. We demand an end to human
trafficking and abuse complicity worldwide.
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