CHARLOTTE ( Pro-Immigrant Activist Detained at U.S. Airport )

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – Pro-immigrant groups in North Carolina launched a campaign Monday on behalf of a community organizer detained while trying to board a plane at Buffalo Niagara International Airport in New York.

Rausel Arista, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, is the father of two U.S.-born children who has struggled to get immigration laws changed since 2006.

He is currently a community organizer with the Latin American Coalition in Charlotte.

“We know that Rausel was returning to Charlotte after a personal visit to New York when he was detained by immigration agents. He is being held at a detention center in Buffalo in the process of deportation, and we’re doing everything possible to get him out of there,” LAC spokesman Armando Bellmas told Efe on Monday.

Arista came to Charlotte 15 years ago from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero in search of a better future and found work in restaurants, factories and construction sites, until 2012 when he decided to dedicate himself entirely to community activism.

He has taken part in national campaigns in favor of immigration reform with the American Friends Service Committee and the Keeping Families Together campaign.

His commitment to the cause of the undocumented led him to get himself arrested last October in Washington with another 200 people, including Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and five other lawmakers, in an act of civil disobedience in support of immigration reform.

The North Carolina immigrant community will meet Monday night for a vigil in a Charlotte church to raise awareness of Arista’s case and to call for having his deportation to Mexico canceled.

WASHINGTON ( Texas to Send 1,000 National Guard Troops to Border with Mexico)

WASHINGTON – Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Monday announced that next month he will deploy 1,000 National Guard soldiers along the border with Mexico to deal with the avalanche of immigrant children who are arriving from Central America.

At a press conference in Austin, Perry justified his decision by citing the consequences of the child migrants’ arrival, as well as the fact that criminal bands are taking advantage of the Border Patrol’s focus on dealing with the children to increase their drug and people trafficking activities.

“I will not stand idly by. The price of inaction is too high,” the Republican governor said.

Perry’s name has reappeared on the national scene after the child immigration crisis broke and many speculate that he is considering another presidential run in 2016 after his failed bid for the Republican nomination in 2012.

Congressional Republicans in recent weeks have emphasized to President Barack Obama the need to strengthen security on the border to prevent the massive arrival of the children.

Bolstering border security is not part of the $3.7 billion plan to deal with the crisis proposed by the president.

Conservatives are reluctant to approve such a large emergency funding package to deal with the problem and even less inclined to do so when the plan, in their judgment, does not include a sufficient amount of border security reinforcement.

Perry, who has dubbed his measure “Operation Strong Safety,” also has asked Obama and Congress to hire an additional 3,000 Border Patrol agents in Texas.

Iran ( Police clash with indigenous people - 3 killed ) Nasty killings

HRANA News Agency – Police clash with indigenous people living in the village, “Koveh” in Qeshm On Saturday, 12^th July, resulted in the deaths of three people and wounding six others.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), during discovery of smuggled fuel in the village “Koveh” of the Qeshm Island Three people were killed and at least six others were injured by police shooting.

Police forces also burned a boat belonging to the fuel smugglers in the beach of village and attempted to confiscate their properties.
In the images sent by eyewitnesses, some places destroyed by a truck that allegedly had been smuggling fuel storage.

Due to poverty, indigenous people of the Qeshm Island mostly work as fuel smugglers.
The names of those killed and injured in the accident are not known, also, Iran’s police website has failed to inform about this incident which caused the village people protests.
Pictures documenting the incident on Saturday in “Koveh” village:

Pakistan ( Four Women Critically Injured After Acid Attack in Pakistan )

ISLAMABAD – Four women were seriously wounded on Monday after being attacked with acid by two men riding a motorbike in Quetta, in southwestern Pakistan, a police official told Efe.

The attack took place in the city’s Shariab market when the women were out shopping. The men, who were armed, hurled acid at them and fled the scene, said Quetta Police Superintendent Imran Quereshi.

The victims, who suffered serious burns on their faces, were admitted to the Bolan Medical Complex hospital in the city.

The cause of the attack remains unknown and no suspects were immediately arrested.

Baluchistan province, with Quetta as its capital, borders Afghanistan and Iran, and is the largest but the least populated province of Pakistan.

The area is the scene of repeated attacks from separatist groups, Islamic militants and mafia networks that operate throughout the country.

Acid attacks against women, which often fall under what is termed as honour crimes, are common in Pakistan where women face discrimination in all spheres of social life.

MEXICO ( Police Find Boy’s Body, Rescue 2 Girls in Central Mexico )

MEXICO CITY – Police in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato rescued two girls, ages 5 and 6, and found the body of a boy who was murdered by his parents and buried in a clandestine grave, officials said.

Police found the girls, who had been beaten, and the boy’s body after receiving a tip from the public about child abuse at a business in the city of Acambaro, a Guanajuato Attorney General’s Office spokesman told Efe.

A citizen used ProcuarApp, a mobile application that allows citizens to send tips to authorities using their cell phones, to notify officials.

Police investigated the tip and located the property where the children were being abused in less than 30 minutes.

A citizen sent a photograph to authorities showing the two girls “obviously beaten and hanging by the arms,” the AG’s office spokesman said.

AG’s office agents entered the two-story building and arrested 35-year-old Jesus Nava Medina, who confessed that the girls and their mother were at his car wash.

Investigators found the girls in a dark room, where they were tied up.

The girls, who were dehydrated and malnourished, had wounds on their hands and bodies from beatings, the AG’s office spokesman said.

The girls told investigators that the adults had tied them up and one of the victims said they had a brother who had not been around for some time.

The woman was questioned and told investigators that her spouse, Nava Medina, murdered her 7-year-old son in August 2013 and buried him in a plastic industrial barrel in the yard of their house.

Investigators searched the property and found the boy’s remains in a barrel filled with cement and soil.

The coroner’s office determined that the boy died from blunt trauma to the head and chest,” the AG’s office spokesman said.

MEXICO CITY ( Frenchman Who Disappeared in Mexico Found Slain )

 MEXICO CITY – DNA tests confirmed that remains found earlier this week in the southern state of Guerrero correspond to a French citizen who was reported missing in February, Mexican authorities said Friday.

Harry Devert, 32, disappeared in the western Mexican state of Michoacan while traveling from the United States to Brazil by motorcycle.

“The discovery of this gentleman took place a few days ago, today, unfortunately, we can confirm that it is him (Devert),” Guerrero state Attorney General Iñaky Blanco told reporters in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

Plastic bags containing body parts were found along with the wreckage of a motorcycle on a road near the coastal city of Zihuatanejo, northwest of Acapulco, the attorney general said.

Devert disappeared in January in Michoacan, which borders Guerrero.

Joel Moreno Rojas, a resident of Zitacuaro, Michoacan, went to authorities on Feb. 5 to report Devert missing.

Moreno told police he had not heard anything from Devert since the motorcyclist left Zitacuaro on Jan. 25, headed for Zihuatanejo.

The Frenchman’s girlfriend, Sarah, received a text message from Devert on Jan. 25 saying that he had been “escorted” for 90 minutes through an area “that was too dangerous for me.”

“Apparently, there is another military escort waiting for me in another city ... I am being delayed by all these crazy things of the soldiers ... I hope to have a chance to speak with you guys tonight when (with luck), I finally get there,” Devert said in his text message.

Michoacan and Guerrero are among the most dangerous regions in Mexico due to the presence of rival criminal outfits battling for control of drug trafficking and other lucrative rackets.

Dodging cops, 6 maids killed in road inferno

Seven persons, including six expat women, were charred to death in a fiery crash as they attempted to jump a police checkpoint 185 km from Taif on Saturday.
All six women, believed to be Ethiopians working as housemaids, were illegal who were on their way to Riyadh when the accident occurred.
“Road security forces attempted to stop a speeding vehicle, but the driver failed to stop, prompting security forces to fire multiple shots in the air,” said Lt. Aati Al-Qurashi of the Makkah regional police headquarters in a statement. 
“The speeding car then vanished, but a mere 15 minutes later, police received a report stating that the car had tried to avoid the speed bumps ahead by driving into the opposite lane, only to crash into three cars and then an electricity pole, setting fire to a nearby fuel tanker.” 
He said: “The car was gutted with all seven passengers inside by the time Civil Defense teams arrived at the scene.”
He added: “We can confirm that the victims were all illegal expats.” 
Acting Ethiopian Consul-General Sherif Osman told Arab News that his consulate was not made aware of the incident.
Sources told Arab News that some of the victims’ relatives came to Al-Moya Hospital, where two of the bodies had been shifted, confirming their nationalities, while five bodies had been shifted to a general hospital in Zulm.
Sources also confirmed that all of the bodies would be transferred to a morgue in Taif.
Ethiopian men and women routinely infiltrate the Kingdom from the southern borders, heading to Riyadh and other cities in search of work.
Five illegal Ethiopians were killed when their car crashed on the way to Riyadh from Najran three months ago.