Child Migrants, Alone in Court
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- Published on Thursday, 11 April 2013 14:48
By SONIA NAZARIO April 10, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/opinion/give-lawyers-to-immigrant-children.html
BELKIS RIVERA, 14 years old, sat in the Los Angeles immigration courtroom, in a black coat and purple scarf, shaking with fear. When Belkis was 6, the gang that controlled her neighborhood in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, killed her grandmother and then her uncle, and demanded that her brothers join as lookouts. Belkis’s mother took the boys and fled to the United States, leaving Belkis behind with family. When the gang started stalking and threatening Belkis, then 13, she followed, making the terrifying six-month journey across Mexico by herself. She was caught by the Border Patrol last September, while crossing into the United States. Now she faced one more trauma: America’s judicial system.
Taiwan harvests organs from executed death row inmate
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- Published on Sunday, 23 December 2012 03:59
Agence France-Presse in Taipei 22 Dec 2012
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1111510/taiwan-harvests-organs-executed-death-row-inmate
A hospital in Taiwan harvested organs and other body parts from one of six executed death row inmates, in a controversial procedure that could help five patients, local media reported Sunday. Taiwanese authorities executed six death row prisoners Friday, the largest number to be put to death in one day in recent years, amid an ongoing debate about the maintenance of capital punishment. Three inmates had agreed to donate their organs but doctors only harvested material from one of them, the United Daily News said. Chen Chin-huo, convicted of murdering a woman and cooking her flesh, had his liver, two kidneys, corneas and bone removed, the newspaper reported. “The donation will benefit at least five patients waiting for transplanting of organs,” it said, without identifying the hospital where the procedure took place. The Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in the south refused to harvest organs from a second inmate. Lin Hsin-yi, of the Taiwan Alliance to End Death Penalty, told news agency AFP that death row inmates had to give consent for their organs to be removed but that some doctors refused to perform such operations. “Unlike the people who die of illnesses or killed in accidents, the inmates have their lives taken by force,” she said. “As doctors need to race against time, the inmates are sent to the hospital as soon as possible after execution. “Against that backdrop, some doctors may feel they are removing organs from people who are still [medically] alive.” The justice ministry did not reveal how the six inmates were executed Friday but usually death row convicts in Taiwan are put to death with a bullet to the head. Taiwan is one of the few countries where organ harvesting from death row inmates is allowed. Taiwan executed five prisoners in March last year and four in April 2010. The 2010 executions were the first after a hiatus that had lasted since 2005. The death penalty debate reignited in Taiwan after the playground murder of a 10-year-old boy whose throat was slit. Following reports suggesting the 29-year-old suspect was allegedly looking forward to free board and lodgings in jail, angry protesters gathered at the justice ministry demanding the island’s death row inmates be executed. The debate has also been fuelled by the 1997 execution of a soldier wrongly convicted in a child murder case.
US justice likely coming soon to Benghazi with extrajudicial executions
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- Published on Friday, 19 October 2012 03:28
If the Obama administration identifies suspects in the consulate attack, should
they simply be killed without a trial?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/19/benghazi-attack-suspects-drones?newsfeed=true
amnesty france
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- Published on Thursday, 18 October 2012 05:10
nigeria boko haram
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- Published on Thursday, 11 October 2012 04:25
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/nigeria1012webwcover.pdf