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MEAN STREETS MEDIA
Saturday, July 20, 2013
BAGHDAD ( At Least 25 Dead in Sunni Mosque Explosion in Iraq )
BAGHDAD – At least 25 people died and more than 80 were wounded when a bomb went off in a Sunni Muslim mosque near the city of Baquba, an Iraqi security forces official told Efe.The official, who at first reported 15 people killed, said the explosion was detonated in the Abu Bakir al-Sideeq Mosque in Wijaihiya.
Among those wounded in the attack, unleashed as dozens of the faithful were gathered for Friday prayers, 27 are in grave condition.
Wijaihiya and other areas northeast of Baquba have been the scene of armed attacks in recent days, perpetrated by Shi’ite Muslim militias, which have left dozens of victims and displaced persons.
Terrorist attacks and sectarian violence have increased in Iraq since July 10, the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Last Friday at least 10 people died and another 20 were wounded by an explosive device that went off in a Shi’ite mosque north of Baghdad.
The UN representative in Iraq, Martin Kobler, said this week that the past four months have been the bloodiest in five years, with a total of 3,000 dead and 7,000 wounded. EFE
Mexico MORELIA ( 4 people tortured and killed - 2 men and 2 women )
MORELIA, Mexico – Organized crime is suspected in the torture and murder of four people in the western Mexican town of Buenavista Tomatlan, a source in the Michoacan state Attorney General’s Office told Efe on Friday.Each of the victims – identified only as two men and two women in their early 20s – was blindfolded and finished off with a gunshot to the head, the source said.
The bodies were found hanging from a metal archway at the entrance to El Limon de la Luna, a community in Buenavista Tomatlan, one of five Michoacan municipalities where residents have organized militias to defend themselves from a criminal outfit known as Los Caballeros Templarios (The Knights Templar).
Los Caballeros, a breakaway faction of the La Familia Michoacana mob, have come to dominate the illegal drug trade in Michoacan and are also involved in kidnapping, extortion and murder-for-hire.
The source in the state AG’s office suggested Los Caballeros killed the people found Friday in an effort to intimidate the community self-defense groups.
Two members of the local militia in the municipality of Apatzingan were among five men who were killed Thursday in the Michoacan village of La Cuchilla.
Mexico’s Federal Police said three of its officers were killed and five others wounded Thursday in an attack by suspected Los Caballeros gunmen in the southern state of Guerrero.
The assailants attacked a convoy of Federal Police vehicles traveling on the Siglo XXI highway, which links Morelia, capital of Michoacan, to the Pacific coast. EFE
Friday, July 19, 2013
Mexico City ( Mexican Woman Fights One Year Jail Sentence for Having Abortion )
MEXICO CITY – A woman sentenced to one year in jail for having an abortion has taken her case to the highest court in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, her legal defense team told Efe on Friday.“We see this sentence as discriminatory, not in line with due process and has been imposed based solely on Hilda’s confession, which she gave under pressure,” the defendant’s attorney, Alma Beltran y Puga, said in an interview.
The attorney of the Selective Reproduction Information Group, or GIRE, said the case goes back to July 2009, when the woman, then six weeks pregnant, arrived at a hospital “with a medical complication” that turned out to be a miscarriage.
Doctors notified the prosecutor’s office that it could be an abortion.
The next day the woman was taken to a police station, though quickly released.
Several days later, however, the woman was arrested, “accused of the crime of abortion,” and was sent to jail, though she was released after posting bail of 3,000 pesos ($236), the GIRE attorney said.
On April 5 the judge sentenced the woman to a year behind bars.
Mexico in recent years has had “a pretty worrying propensity for criminalizing women,” GIRE says, citing figures that show an annual average of 225 cases like Hilda’s.
“The government here is very efficient, though perhaps not for investigating the killing of women in Ciudad Juarez,” said Beltran y Puga, referring to the hundreds of unsolved murders of women and girls in that northern border metropolis.
Of Mexico’s 32 jurisdictions, only the Federal District – Greater Mexico City – has fully decriminalized abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Elsewhere in the Aztec nation, it has been customary to allow termination of pregnancies resulting from rape.
But some Mexican states, including San Luis Potosi, have adopted laws establishing a right to life starting from the moment of conception. EFE
Mexico Morelia ( Three Mexican Police Killed by Cartel Gunmen )
Suspected members of the Los Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) outfit attacked a convoy of Federal Police vehicles traveling on the Siglo XXI highway, authorities said
MORELIA, Mexico – Mexico’s Federal Police said three of its officers were killed and five others wounded in an attack by drug-cartel gunmen in the southern state of Guerrero.Suspected members of the Los Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) outfit attacked a convoy of Federal Police vehicles traveling on the Siglo XXI highway, which links Morelia, capital of Michoacan state, to the Pacific coast.
Following the assault, which took place around 6:00 p.m. Thursday at a toll plaza in Feliciano, Guerrero, the gunmen sought refuge in the nearby town of La Union.
Police and army troops set out after the attackers, who commandeered and set fire to several freight trucks in a bid to slow down their pursuers.
Residents of several towns in Michoacan woke up on Thursday to see banners threatening attacks on the Federal Police. The messages purported to come from Los Caballeros, a breakaway faction of the La Familia Michoacana crime organization.
Los Caballeros, who have come to dominate the illegal drug trade in the western state, are accused of being behind murders, kidnappings and extortion rackets in Michoacan. EFE
Iran News ( Mother of Blogger " Beaten to death " in Prison - wants sons body exhumed ) To prove he was killed
Deceased Blogger’s Mother Requests Exhumation
In reaction to the Medical Examiner’s Office’s final opinion stating that the late Sattar Beheshti’s cause of death could not have been blows while in detention, his mother recently demanded for his body to be exhumed to determine his real cause of death.
“I didn’t ask for the body to be exhumed to humiliate the regime. I had no other choice than to say this when the Medical Examiner’s Office announced that my son’s death was by natural causes. I believe that the Medical Examiner’s Office humiliated the regime by its final opinion. What kind of opinion was this which they announced after nine months? Why doesn’t the investigative judge in this case, who says he is carefully reviewing the case, summon the 41 prisoners inside the political ward of Evin Prison, who saw my son the night before his death inside Evin Prison in dire shape? They have all said that they are willing to testify. Why don’t they summon one of them?” Sattar Beheshti’s mother told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Gohar Eshghi told the Campaign that she has not yet submitted a formal request for Sattar Beheshti’s body to be exhumed. “Despite all the injustice done in the case of my son and us, we still consider the Judiciary the authority to implement justice. I hope that the Judiciary authorities step in themselves and review this case fairly. Asking for the body to be exhumed is one of the tools for enforcing justice, but I hope that things will not get to that and for the case to be reviewed fairly,” she said.
Sattar Beheshti’s mother stated recently in an interview with Saham News website that she had requested for her son’s body to be exhumed in order to clarify his cause of death. “Exhuming the body is neither in the country’s best interest, nor in the regime’s best interest. It is in no one’s interest. We are not trying to humiliate the regime, but when our rights are trampled, we have to respond,” she said.
In an interview with Mehr News Agency, the Head of the Iranian Medical Examiner’s Office said on July 9 that according to the final report from the organization, the blows to Sattar Beheshti were not fatal and could not have caused his death. Dr. Ahmad Shojaei also said that the toxicology reports did not indicate anything that would point to a death by unnatural causes.
In an earlier interview with the Campaign, in reaction to the final statement made by the Medical Examiner’s Office, lawyer Giti Pourfazel, representing the late Sattar Beheshti’s family, said, “My question is, if Sattar died of natural causes, why did the Cyber Police forces forcefully take Sattar’s family to a registry office in order to take their consent [to waive their rights]? This action shows that the Cyber Police thought itself involved in this death and wanted to take the family’s consent before any other action.”
Sattar Beheshti, 35, a laborer and blogger, was arrested by Iran’s Cyber Police on charges of “acting against national security through activities in social networks and Facebook.” He was brutally tortured during his interrogations and died in the process. He was buried at Robat Karim Cemetery near where he lived. His date of death is officially registered as November 3, 2012.
After news of Sattar Beheshti’s death was published, 41 Evin Prison political prisoners published a letter on Kaleme website and stated that Sattar Beheshti had been held at Evin Prison’s Ward 350 on October 31 and November 1, 2012, and that signs of torture could be seen all over different parts of his body.
In a press release issued November 9, 2012, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran quoted one of Sattar Beheshti’s relatives who had seen his corpse prior to burial saying, “[T]here was a large dent on his head and … they had put plaster over his head. His face was swollen…. As soon as they untied his shroud it became completely bloody, and there were signs of an autopsy on his body, as well.”
Gohar Eshghi told the Campaign that she has not yet submitted a formal request for Sattar Beheshti’s body to be exhumed. “Despite all the injustice done in the case of my son and us, we still consider the Judiciary the authority to implement justice. I hope that the Judiciary authorities step in themselves and review this case fairly. Asking for the body to be exhumed is one of the tools for enforcing justice, but I hope that things will not get to that and for the case to be reviewed fairly,” she said.
“I didn’t ask for the body to be exhumed to humiliate the regime. I had no other choice than to say this when the Medical Examiner’s Office announced that my son’s death was by natural causes. I believe that the Medical Examiner’s Office humiliated the regime by its final opinion. What kind of opinion was this which they announced after nine months? Why doesn’t the investigative judge in this case, who says he is carefully reviewing the case, summon the 41 prisoners inside the political ward of Evin Prison, who saw my son the night before his death inside Evin Prison in dire shape? They have all said that they are willing to testify. Why don’t they summon one of them?” Sattar Beheshti’s mother told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Gohar Eshghi told the Campaign that she has not yet submitted a formal request for Sattar Beheshti’s body to be exhumed. “Despite all the injustice done in the case of my son and us, we still consider the Judiciary the authority to implement justice. I hope that the Judiciary authorities step in themselves and review this case fairly. Asking for the body to be exhumed is one of the tools for enforcing justice, but I hope that things will not get to that and for the case to be reviewed fairly,” she said.
Sattar Beheshti’s mother stated recently in an interview with Saham News website that she had requested for her son’s body to be exhumed in order to clarify his cause of death. “Exhuming the body is neither in the country’s best interest, nor in the regime’s best interest. It is in no one’s interest. We are not trying to humiliate the regime, but when our rights are trampled, we have to respond,” she said.
In an interview with Mehr News Agency, the Head of the Iranian Medical Examiner’s Office said on July 9 that according to the final report from the organization, the blows to Sattar Beheshti were not fatal and could not have caused his death. Dr. Ahmad Shojaei also said that the toxicology reports did not indicate anything that would point to a death by unnatural causes.
In an earlier interview with the Campaign, in reaction to the final statement made by the Medical Examiner’s Office, lawyer Giti Pourfazel, representing the late Sattar Beheshti’s family, said, “My question is, if Sattar died of natural causes, why did the Cyber Police forces forcefully take Sattar’s family to a registry office in order to take their consent [to waive their rights]? This action shows that the Cyber Police thought itself involved in this death and wanted to take the family’s consent before any other action.”
Sattar Beheshti, 35, a laborer and blogger, was arrested by Iran’s Cyber Police on charges of “acting against national security through activities in social networks and Facebook.” He was brutally tortured during his interrogations and died in the process. He was buried at Robat Karim Cemetery near where he lived. His date of death is officially registered as November 3, 2012.
After news of Sattar Beheshti’s death was published, 41 Evin Prison political prisoners published a letter on Kaleme website and stated that Sattar Beheshti had been held at Evin Prison’s Ward 350 on October 31 and November 1, 2012, and that signs of torture could be seen all over different parts of his body.
In a press release issued November 9, 2012, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran quoted one of Sattar Beheshti’s relatives who had seen his corpse prior to burial saying, “[T]here was a large dent on his head and … they had put plaster over his head. His face was swollen…. As soon as they untied his shroud it became completely bloody, and there were signs of an autopsy on his body, as well.”
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