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23-Year Old Beheaded In Anti-Gay Hate Crime Murder In South Africa

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A 23-year old transgender and gay man was beheaded in his home town of Kuruman, South Africa Friday, in an anti-gay hate crime. Thapelo Makutle, who was crowned Miss Gay Kuruman, was murdered by two men who remain at large. Reports state that police, for reasons of language and training, are not classifying the murder as a hate crime, and do not understand the significance of the attack. On report states the police reject that Makutle was beheaded, but acknowledge his throat was slashed.

Mamba Online reports:

According to the group Legbo Northern Cape, Thapelo Makutle was attacked at his place of work in the John Taolo Gaetsewe district on Friday. The organisation said that there was an argument related to “his sexuality and homosexuality”.

His two attackers are believed to have followed him to the room where he lived and on Saturday cut his throat, decapitating him.

They left his body under a blanket as though he were sleeping.

Makutle, who identified as both gay and transgender, was a volunteer for Legbo Northern Cape. He recently participated in the Kimberley Out In Africa Gay and Lesbian Festival, was known as a beauty queen named Queen Bling and was recently crowned Miss Gay Kuruman.

“It’s so sad. I can’t describe the pain that we are feeling right now,” Shaine Griqua, director of Legbo Northern Cape, told Mambaonline. “We have lost a young, talented, gay man who was open about who he was. The last few days have been like a dark cloud.”

He said that no arrests have yet been made in connection with the murder. He expressed his frustration with the lack of support for LGBT people in the Northern Cape and noted that hate crimes are on the rise in the province.

“We recently had a lesbian stabbed three times in a bar because they said that she should be a woman and not a man. She chose not to press charges because she didn’t want her family involved,” Griqua said.

“The government is not interested in this problem,” he added.

A later report form Mamba Online states:

According to the Mothibistad police, Thapelo Makutle’s body was found lying on the floor of his rented room. It is alleged that the victim has been out with his friends that night. He left unannounced and his friends assumed that he had gone home to sleep.

Shaine Griqua, Director of Legbo Northern Cape, who first reported the attack, said that confusion around the state of the body likely stems from miscommunication due to most people in the area not speaking English as a first language.

Griqua believes that the attack was a hate crime and said that he has information that Makutle was killed as a result of an argument about his sexuality and gender appearance, but police have yet to confirm this, saying that the motive is as yet unknown.

He told Mambaonline that the police in the area are ill-equipped to deal appropriately with a hate crime.

“These people [the police] are not reliable. They don’t even know what a hate crime is. If you ask them if it was related to his sexuality they will say ‘no’ because they don’t understand the context,” Griqua insisted.

Global Post adds:

In a statement, Cosatu’s Northern Cape secretary Anele Gxoyiya condemned “this brutal attack on a young, brilliant and educated soul whose head was chopped off in a hate crime.”

While South Africa is one of the few countries in the world to extend equal rights to homosexuals, and the only nation in Africa to allow same-sex marriage, the reality of life in townships and rural areas for gays and lesbians has been one of often brutal violence.

In a high-profile incident last year, Noxolo Nogwaza, a lesbian activist based in KwaThema township near Johannesburg, was gang-raped and then stabbed and stoned to death, in what the New York-based group Human Rights Watch described as part of an “epidemic” of hate crimes against gays and lesbians in South Africa.

Politics Web published a statement in response to the murder, by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, Democratic Alliance Parliamentary Leader:

This violent and gruesome assault is yet another reminder that many of our country’s people are still denied the basic rights and freedoms which our Constitution enshrines.

There is a spate of homophobic hate crimes which have recently taken place across our country, including the repugnant and unconscionable crime of so-called “corrective rape” committed against lesbian South African women.

At this time, South Africa needs strong leadership from President Jacob Zuma, and an indication of his commitment to ensuring that all South Africans are able to live their lives free from fear of discrimination or violence.

Unfortunately, the silence from the Presidency has been deafening. This silence is made worse by the fact that President Zuma has in the past shown himself to be prejudiced towards homosexuals.

Last year, the DA welcomed the establishment of a government-led Joint Task Team on a “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Intervention Strategy”, established in September 2011, under the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

Unfortunately, this task team has yet to make any report on its work.

Meanwhile, the spate of crimes continues.

President Zuma must speak out against this weekend’s horrific murder, and the many others like it, which are in danger of becoming all too commonplace in our country today.

I will today be calling for a debate in Parliament about the prevalence of these crimes in South Africa, and calling on MPs to discuss what can be done by the government to address this ongoing problem.

In addition, I will also be writing to the President to ask what immediate steps his government will be taking to address the violence and intimidation that homosexual South Africans must face on a daily basis.

Such crimes, and the President’s silence on them, cannot be allowed to continue.

Hat-tip: Towleroad

 

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‘Terrific’: Trump Defends Kristi Noem After Shooting Her Dog to Death

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May 14, 2024

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Donald Trump came to the aid of embattled Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, whose story about shooting to death her 14-month old German wirehaired pointer named Cricket has been denounced by Americans on the left and right for weeks.

Gov. Noem not only chose to put the story in her memoir, but has repeatedly defended her decision to drag the dog into a gravel pit and shoot her, killing her with one bullet without even warning her child, who asked when they returned home from school, “Where’s Cricket?”

Trump, speaking Tuesday on “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show,” the successor to the late Rush Limbaugh’s talk radio program, did not appear to have a full grasp of the story or the massive outrage and upset Gov. Noem caused.

“I’m sure you’ve seen some of the Kristi Noem story. She might be the only person getting worse press than you on the left right now with the dog shooting story,” Clay Travis told Trump. “Is she still in the mix as a VP? Have you thought maybe she’d make more sense in a cabinet? How do you analyze stories like that as you go about making a choice?”

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Noem, until the dog shooting story came out, was widely believed to be on Trump’s short list as a vice presidential running mate.

“Well, until this week, she was doing incredibly well and she got hit hard, and sometimes you do books and you have some guy writing a book and you maybe don’t read it as carefully,” Trump offered as a defense of the governor whose dog-shooting story came out weeks ago. “You know, you have ghost writers, do they help you? And they this case didn’t help too much.”

“Now, she’s terrific,” Trump continued, lavishing praise on Noem. “Look, she’s been a supporter of mine from day one. She did a great job of governor, as governor. And you know, you look at South Dakota numbers. She’s really done a great job.”

Trump did not say what numbers specifically, nor did he say on what Governor Noem did a great job. he also did not answer the question Travis posed about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, nor did he bring up any of the other controversies surrounding the book.

“And in some form, I mean, I think I think she’s terrific. A couple of rough stories. There’s no question about it. And when explained the dog story, you know, people, people hear that and people from different parts of the country probably feel a little bit differently, but that’s a tough story. And, but she’s a terrific person. She said she had a bad, she had a bad week.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Mouths of Sauron’: Critics Blast ‘Mobster Tactic’ of Trump Surrogates ‘Violating’ Gag Order

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‘Mouths of Sauron’: Critics Blast ‘Mobster Tactic’ of Trump Surrogates ‘Violating’ Gag Order

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7 hours ago

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May 14, 2024

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In his remarks outside the courtroom Tuesday, Donald Trump demanded Judge Juan Merchan rescind the tailored gag order placed on him that was designed to ensure the sanctity of the trial and the safety of witnesses, jurors, court staff, and their families.

“The gag order has to come off,” Trump told reporters Tuesday morning, adding his frequent “never been anything like this in the history of our country” claim.

Judge Merchan just last week reportedly cited Trump’s own words from his own book when defending his decision to keep the gag order in place and not modify it.

“When you are wronged, go after those people, because it is a good feeling and because other people will see you doing it. Getting even is not always a personal thing. It’s just part of doing business,” Trump’s book passage reads.

But as The Washington Post reported Monday, Trump’s surrogates are saying “the forbidden stuff for him.” They “have helpfully stepped forward to offer a timely and convenient service: lodging those same attacks, while appearing at the trial in support of him.”

READ MORE: Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

“Republican lawmakers have appeared at Trump’s trial — even entering and exiting the courtroom with him — and proceeded to say precisely the kinds of things he’s not allowed to.”

Because the “kinds of things he’s not allowed to” say violate the gag order.

Politico reports, “Trump’s surrogates continue launching verbal attacks that would violate gag order if Trump said them himself.”

But according to the text of Trump’s gag order, he is “directed to refrain from”:

“Making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding; Making or directing others to make public statements” about attorneys “in the case other than the District Attorney,” “members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or the family members of any counsel or staff member” or “any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.”

The prosecution has not indicated it will, but it could ask the judge to examine the “directing others to make public statements” portion of the gag order.

On Tuesday, one of the most powerful elected Republicans in the country, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, became the most high-profile Trump surrogate on the planet.

RELATED: ‘Campaigning for Trump at His Criminal Trial’: Johnson Blasted for Going to NYC Courthouse

Critics are blasting Speaker Johnson, who is second in line to the presidency, for attending the trial Tuesday and for delivering remarks some are calling false, in support of the indicted ex-president and 2024 GOP presumptive nominee.

“When asked for his worldview when Mike Johnson became Speaker of the House and nobody knew anything about him he said, ‘you want to know my worldview? Go read the bible, that’s what I stand for,'” MSNBC’s Willie Geist said Tuesday. “And now today he’s at the courthouse defending the guy who’s on trial for allegedly paying off a porn star for the alleged affair he had while his wife was home with their infant son.”

Johnson and U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) are among those who went and said what the judge told Trump he could not.

Johnson strongly defended Trump Tuesday morning. And following the Trump playbook, he attacked the prosecutor, the judge, and the judge’s daughter, which could be deemed a violation of Judge Merchan’s gag order against Trump if he decides Johnson’s remarks came at Trump’s request.

Award-winning journalist Laura Bassett, the former editor-in-chief of Jezebel, responded to that video, writing, “The guy who admitted that he and his son monitor each other’s porn intake is out here publicly lying on behalf of a man who cheated on his wife with a porn star and paid to cover it up.”

Calling it “Craven,” and “lawless,” Bloomberg Opinion Senior Executive Editor Tim O’Brien remarked, “House Speaker Mike Johnson is outside the NY courthouse right now and essentially helping Trump sidestep the court’s gag order by acting as his proxy by attacking the integrity of the trial and judicial process. He’s even targeting Justice Merchan’s daughter.”

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Congressman Donalds, who is on the short list to become Trump’s vice presidential running mate, also attacked the judge’s daughter on Tuesday, from outside the courthouse.

Political commentator Bob Cesca observed, “If you’re wondering why Vance, Tuberville, and Johnson are there, it’s because of the gag order. They’re Trump’s voice. The Mouths of Sauron,” he wrote, referring to the near-entirely evil creature from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”

“BTW, asking surrogates to attack witnesses and the judge’s daughter is a violation of the gag order,” he added.

Former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Craig Silverman remarked, “Note how Trump gets Vance and Johnson to violate the gag order for him. Mobster tactic. Make your Trump champions violate the law right along with you. Once they are in for a dime, they are in for a dollar and stuck with MAGA.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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‘Campaigning for Trump at His Criminal Trial’: Johnson Blasted for Going to NYC Courthouse

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10 hours ago

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May 14, 2024

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is the latest high-profile Republican to travel to the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building in New York City to show his support for Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee facing a total of 88 criminal charges, including 34 felonies in his election subversion, falsification of business records case, better known as the “hush money” trial. Johnson holding a news conference Tuesday morning from the courthouse in support of the indicted ex-president.

Earlier Tuesday morning from the courthouse (video below) Trump was asked by a reporter, “are you directing surrogates to speak on your behalf?” Trump avoided the specific question but claimed, “I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully, and they come from all over Washington and they’re highly-respected and they think this is the greatest scam they’ve ever seen.”

Johnson’s grip on his job has been challenged by the far-right extremists in his own caucus, led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) but his travels to Mar-a-Lago to see and be seen with Trump have fortified his hold.

As NCRM reported Monday, during the early days of the Trump New York criminal trial many noted the ex-president was alone. He was sitting, and at times, snoozing, alone in court, unsupported by family members or friends. That changed as the weeks went by, and now his son Eric Trump is a regular face in the courthouse, and GOP lawmakers, generally in twos, are showing up daily to act as campaign surrogates inside and outside the courthouse.

RELATED: ‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Tommy Tuberville (R-GA) and U.S. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) were the latest pair to attend the trial. Sen. Vance attacked the judge’s daughter, which prosecutors may decide to bring up to the judge as it may have violated Trump’s gag order if the ex-president directed him to do so. Congressman Tuberville, a white Christian nationalist, followed the Trump playbook, attacking the judicial system, and the jurors, whom he suggested were not U.S. citizens.

And now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, second in line to the presidency, is at the Criminal Courts Building in lower Manhattan, effectively stumping for the indicted leader of his party.

Critics are expressing outrage.

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob, who comments on politics and the media on Substack, blasted Speaker Johnson.

“MAGA Mike Johnson is showing up at the Trump trial today to show his support for cheating on your wife with a porn star, paying her hush money, and then falsifying business records so the voting public doesn’t find out the truth,” Jacob wrote, adding: “This is Mike Johnson’s version of Christianity.”

Jared Ryan Sears, who writes The Pragmatic Humanist at Substack, lamented, “This is what half of American politics has become. It is embarrassing. There could be bills trying to solve price gouging, the border, poverty, homelessness, worker pay, or addressing any other real and current issue.”

“Instead members of Congress waste their time making a show of going to a trial for someone who had affairs, paid hush money, and covered it all up to mislead the public ahead of a close election,” Sears continued. “Then they will get in front of the cameras and say phrases like ‘weaponized justice’ and ‘lawfare’ when they know full well no such thing is happening. All so that their dear leader doesn’t mean tweet about them.”

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Journalist Marcy Wheeler, who writes about civil liberties and national security, served up a damning indictment of Speaker Johnson: “It is newsworthy NOT just [because] the entire GOP is pro-crime, but ALSO that a man who would dictate reproductive choice and other life choices to others is backing a guy whose cover-up for f*cking multiple sex workers (without a condom!!) was charged as crime.”

Appearing to focus on the media, she added: “Speaker Mike should be GRILLED about whether he supports extramarital affairs during pregnancy. Don’t give him this stunt for free.”

Journalist Jonathan Ford of Ford News called it “an absolute disgrace,” while observing, “You don’t see Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries showing support for Senator Menendez.”

“Last week,” The Nation’s John Nichols notes, “most House Democrats voted with most Republicans to save Mike Johnson’s speakership. This week, Johnson is in a NYC courtroom to support Donald Trump. Democrats need to STOP providing cover for the most extreme Speaker in American history.”

Former Obama chief strategist and senior White House advisor David Axelrod commented, “As if this weren’t already a bizarre reality show, now we have celebrity guest courtroom gallery appearances of acolytes looking to punch their card with the Boss.”

Watch Trump’s remarks, with Speaker Johnson in the background, below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

 

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