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Week in Review: Uganda Gay Activist Gets RFK Award, US Denies Gay Diplomat Asylum, Penn State Sex Abuse

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Gay Saudi Diplomat Denied Political Asylum By U.S.

Former Saudi Arabian diplomat Ali Ahmad Asseri, apparently a gay man, whose diplomatic status was revoked by the Saudi Arabian government because he is gay, has been denied political asylum by the U.S. government, according to a report published by the Jerusalem Post, who quotes a Saudi blogger. Asylum decisions are made by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services division of Homeland Security. But no doubt the White House and the State Department would weigh in on a decision involving a Saudi diplomat. By denying Asseri asylum, the U.S. would be sending Asseri to an inevitable death, as Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty to known gays.

“My life is in a great danger here and if I go back to Saudi Arabia, they will kill me openly in broad daylight,” Asseri told NBC.

Arab League Suspends Syria 

After months and weeks of a popular uprising against the autocratic government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which, according to the UN has killed more than 3,500 people and thousands of others have been arrested, detained, disappeared and tortured, Syria’s membership in the Arab League was suspended Saturday. The League threatened political and economic sanctions against Syria, when issuing the suspension for refusing to suspend violence as a method to end the Arab Spring protests.

The Arab League’s action will take effect in three days, giving the government some time to reconsider its action in relationship to the protestors. This action was called for by Human Rights Watch, among numerous other human rights groups. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly affirmed the League’s action, stating that the “U.S. commends the principled stand taken by the Arab League and supports full implementation of its efforts to bring a peaceful end to the crisis”.

Berlusconi Out, Greeks Form New Government, Europe Shaken

After 17 years in power, Silvio Berlusconi resigned as Prime Minister of Italy yesterday, but it wasn’t the sex scandals that gave him the hook– it was all about money and Italy’s sovereign debt.  He was pushed from power by Germany, France and the G-20 due to the Euro Zone debt crisis, who turned their full attention toward Rome after the fall of George Papandreou’s Greek government last week end.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, who was not elected to parliament, and his government were sworn in on Friday. But by early Thursday, world markets continued to roil with uncertainty, escalating pressure on Italy to yield to the EU’s demands that Italy get its house in order, fearing collapse of its third largest economy. During the day on Thursday, Belusconi knew he could not remain in office, although he wanted to remain in power until a completed package of reforms were adopted by parliament. A first. Italian “Senator for life” Mario Monti is now expected to oversee an interim government, led primarily by technocrats that can revamp Italy’s debt-to-loan ratio. Europe is not out the woods yet and it remains to be seen when the next shoe in the Eurozone crisis will drop.

RFK Human Rights Awarded to First LGBT Activist

Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award this week by Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy and Senator John Kerry, in a ceremony held in Washington, D.C. The RFK Foundation will now support Mugisha and SMUG for the next six years in an effort to advance LGBT rights in Uganda, a first foray into LGBT human rights for the prestigious foundation.

Two weeks ago Mugisha also accepted the Rafto Prize on behalf of SMUG in a ceremony held in Bergen, Norway. The Rafto Prize noted that it was awarded to “SMUG for its work to make fundamental human rights apply to everyone, and to eliminate discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity.” Uganda has become ground zero in Africa and notorious around the world for the efforts of David Bahati, a member of parliament, to legalize capital punishment for homosexuals. In January, David Kato, a gay activist and colleague of Mugisha’s was found in his apartment beaten to death.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XMSClLIMqE&version=3&hl=en_US]

Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal Shocks America

The November 6th arrest of Jerry Sandusky, a former football coach at Penn State University, who was charged by a Pennsylvania State grand jury with 40 counts of sex abuse, unleashed a series of shocking announcements by the University Board of Trustees that included the immediate dismissal of Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach for the past 46 years and Graham Spanier, president of the University, following an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening.

Immediately following the announcement, Penn State student supporters of Paterno took to the streets of State College, in opposition to the Board’s decision, and became violent by flipping over a television satellite truck and engaged in destruction of public and private property–adding insult to nearly lethal injuries already unraveling one of America’s top public universities.

Throughout the week, the Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General and the media reported with dizzying speed the events and details relating to the Penn State cover-up of Sandusky’s alleged rape and sexual assault of young boys, who were recruited through The Second Mile, his foundation for at-risk youth.  His crimes includes an alleged criminal complicity and cover-up by Penn State officials Tim Curley, the former Athletic Director and Gary Schultz, the former Senior Vice President for Finance and Business who were also charged by the grand jury with perjury and related charges. Schultz requested immediate retirement and Curley requested administrative leave from the University.

By Friday morning it became publicly known that Paterno had hired a criminal defense lawyer and may have perjured himself before the grand jury in connection to then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary’s testimony who had witnessed the rape of a 10-year-old boy in the showers by a nude Sandusky. McQueary testified that he told Paterno in detail what he had witnessed, although he did nothing to stop the rape and did not call the police.

McQueary, presently an assistant coach, reportedly had received numerous death threats and the University issued a statement early in the day on Friday that he would not be on sidelines of the Penn State game with Nebraska on Saturday afternoon for his personal safety. By Friday evening, the University announced McQueary was on paid administrative leave and remains a key witness to the Sandusky Penn State case that will no doubt be followed with riveting scrutiny by a shocked nation.

Many Americans, pundits, sports writers and social critics feel that the NCAA should administer what is known as the “death penalty,” by shutting down the football program at Penn State for at least one year, if not longer. These charges reflect an institutional cancer that has exposed a rotted leadership that truly lost sight of core values because of a grossly exalted multi-million dollar sport that trumped the dignity and well-being of children. Apologies are simply inadequate.

Read the following sources for more information:  The Sandusky grand jury report and a New York Times timeline of the Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal.

(Images: Syria, Frank Mugisha, Silvio Berlusconi, Joe Paterno)

 

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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Trump Won’t Commit to Accepting Election Results if He Doesn’t Win State He Falsely Claims He Won

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May 2, 2024

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Falsely claiming he won the state of Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election Donald Trump is now refusing to commit to accepting the 2024 results for the Badger State this November.

In an interview with Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Trump appeared to dance around the issue, declaring he would only accept the official results “if everything’s honest.”

“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump told the paper’s Alison Dirr and Molly Beck in an interview Wednesday. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”

“But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results,” he said.

The Journal Sentinel reports Trump “offered similar conditions when asked the same question by news outlets in 2016 and 2020.”

READ MORE: ‘No Place for Antisemitism’: Biden Denounces Violent Campus Protests, Hate Speech and Racism

“I’d be doing a disservice to the country if I said otherwise,” he said.

In that interview Trump once again falsely claimed he won Wisconsin in 2020, a state President Joe Biden actually won by more than 20,000 votes.

“If you go back and look at all of the things that had been found out, it showed that I won the election in Wisconsin,” Trump told the newspaper. “It also showed I won the election in other locations.”

Trump’s “Big Lie,” that the 2020 election was “rigged” against him, along with his support for the January 6, 2021 insurrection, have been central to his 2024 campaign.

“Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the last presidential election in Wisconsin and his new comments placing conditions on when he would accept the results of the next election come as Republicans are seeking to persuade GOP voters to restore their trust in the state’s system of elections and embrace absentee voting,” the Journal Sentinel reported. “There’s no evidence to support that Wisconsin’s election was tainted by cheating or fraud in 2020. The results have been confirmed by recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties that Trump paid for, court rulings, a nonpartisan state audit and a study by the conservative legal firm Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty, among other analyses.”

READ MORE: Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

In October of 2016, weeks before Election Day, during the final presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would make the commitment “that you will absolutely accept the results of this election?”

“I will look at it at the time,” Trump replied. “I’m not looking at anything now, I’ll look at it at the time.”

He then went on to sow doubt about the credibility of the election.

Trump’s refusal to accept election results stretches back more than a decade, even before he ran for president.

After he refused to accept his loss in 2020, ABC News reported “Trump has longstanding history of calling elections ‘rigged’ if he doesn’t like the results.”

“On election night in 2012, when President Barack Obama was reelected, Trump said that the election was a ‘total sham’ and a ‘travesty,’ while also making the claim that the United States is ‘not a democracy’ after Obama secured his victory.

“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!” Trump wrote on Twitter

One month later, in December of 2012, Trump tweeted, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” Ironically, four years later he became president after losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but winning the Electoral College.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

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‘No Place for Antisemitism’: Biden Denounces Violent Campus Protests, Hate Speech and Racism

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May 2, 2024

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President Joe Biden made rare, unscheduled remarks from the White House Thursday morning, denouncing the recent violent protests on college campuses, and telling Americans there is “no place” for antisemitism anywhere across the nation. He also denounced “hate speech” and “racism,” while declaring his support for the right to peacefully protest.

“There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students,” President Biden declared. “There is no place for hate speech, or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s un-American.”

“Violent protest is not protected,” Biden said strongly. “Peaceful protest is.”

Stressing “the right to free speech,” and the people’s right “to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard,” President Biden also declared the importance of “the rule of law.”

READ MORE: Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” the President also said, praising the ideal of peaceful protests, which he said are in the “best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.”

“But,” he added, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society and order must prevail.”

America is a “big, diverse, free thinking and freedom-loving nation,” Biden said, denouncing those “who rush in to score political points.”

“This isn’t a moment for politics, it’s a moment for clarity.”

“It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest,” he warned. “Threatening people, intimidating people. instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Dissent is essential to democracy but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish a semester and their college education.”

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

“Look. It’s basically a matter of fairness. It’s a matter of what’s right. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked.”

“I understand people have strong feelings and deep convictions in America. We respect the right and protect the right for them to express that. But it doesn’t mean anything goes. It needs to be done without violence. Without destruction, without hate, and within the law. And I’ll make no mistake. As President, I will always defend free speech. And I will always be just as strong standing up for the rule of law. That’s my responsibility to you the American people. My obligation to the Constitution.”

The President also responded to reporters’ questions, including saying he saw no need to call up the National Guard.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Noem Insists 14 Month Old Dog She Shot Was ‘Not a Puppy’ Sparking New Backlash

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May 2, 2024

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Embattled South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, under fire the past week after an excerpt from her new book revealed her boasting about shooting to death her 14-month old puppy she “hated,” has repeatedly defended her actions as proof she can do hard things that need to be done.

Governor Noem, who has been considered a leading contender to become Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, appeared on Fox News Wednesday night and blamed the “fake news” for publishing excerpts from her book, which she has not claimed were inaccurate.

She also insisted the 14-month old wirehaired pointer named Cricket was “not a puppy,” appearing to suggest that made the killing justified, as she again promoted her book so Americans can “find out the truth.”

“Well, Sean, you know how the fake news works,” Noem told Hannity (video below). “They leave out some or most of the facts of a story. They put the worst spin on it, and that’s what’s happened in this case. I hope people really do buy this book and they find out the truth of this story, because the truth of this story is that this was a working dog, and it was not a puppy. It was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had come to us from a family who found her way too aggressive. We were her second chance and she was, the day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock that were a part of our neighbors, she attacked me and it was a hard decision.”

READ MORE: ‘Antisemitism Is Wrong, But’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Pilloried for Promoting Antisemitic Claim

“The reason it’s in the book is because this book is filled with tough, challenging decisions that I’ve had to make throughout my life,” she added.

Noem’s dog shooting, which she recently said took place 20 years ago, has been strongly criticized by the left and right.

Earlier this week two people close to Donald Trump, his former Senior White House Counselor Steve Bannon, and his son, Donald Trump Jr., “questioned Noem’s judgement Monday on Donald Trump Jr.’s show ‘Triggered,'” USA Today reported, noting also that “both men laughed” about it.

“Bannon called Noem ‘a little too based,’ using a slang term popular on the right to describe someone who, among other qualities, speaks and acts without fear of being politically correct, and Trump Jr. said shooting the dog ‘was not ideal.'”

The Guardian, which broke the news of Noem’s dog shooting last week, reported Tuesday “apparently even [ex-president Donald] Trump sees the bad optics in having a ‘puppy killer’ as a running mate.”

RELATED: ‘Let’s Get a Warrant for Her Backyard’: Noem ‘Done Politically’ Right Wing Pundits Say

Meanwhile, criticism, which had been subsiding over the past few days, returned after Noem’s remarks on Fox News.

“She honestly think boasting about killing a dog who was too happy makes her tough,” observed former Lincoln Project executive director Fred Wellman. “I have served with women in combat. They endured horrible conditions. Got blown up. They were tough. Her two examples of tough are killing animals and keeping her state open as hundreds of thousands died. That’s not tough. That’s psycho.”

Calling Noem “broken,” former Republican and former U.S. Congressman Denver Riggleman said: “She wrote the book. She allowed those words to be published. Her ghost writer seems to have despised her. Exposed her. And Kristi liked it… thought it was ‘cool’.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., responding to video of Noem on Fox News, commented: “Here’s donald trump’s leading contender to be vice president defending her butchering a puppy and hawking her crummy book on rightwing propaganda tv. This is the republican party.”

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold offered this criticism:

Jared Ryan Sears, who writes “The Pragmatic Humanist” at Substack, said, “Yes, the issue is the debate on whether or not a 14 month old dog should be called a puppy and not the fact that you murdered it because you refused to train it and could not think of any other possible solution than shooting a young dog in a gravel pit.”

“Keep hawking that book,” he added.

Watch Noem’s remarks below or at this link.

RELATED: Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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