Religious Leaders Call on Mississippi Church to Reject Racism

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

JACKSON, Mississippi — Southern Baptist leaders said Monday that a Mississippi church was wrong to prevent a black couple from getting married at the church earlier this month, and called on the church to reject racism.

Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson were forced to relocate their wedding just days before the ceremony after some members of the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, near Jackson, Miss., complained complained about the black couple having a wedding there. (Photo Courtesy of Black America Web)

Directors of the Mississippi Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention said in keeping with the Baptist tradition, the congregation needs to “chart its own course.”

“Our entire country, and especially here in Mississippi, has been on a long journey for right rational relationships,” read a statement from Jim Futral, the executive director of the Mississippi Baptist Convention board.  “Mississippi Baptists both reject racial discrimination and at the same time respect the autonomy of our local churches to deal with difficulties and disagreements under the lordship of Jesus.”

Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson found out days before their July 21 nuptials that some members of the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, near Jackson, complained about the black couple having a wedding there.  The church’s pastor, Rev. Stan Weatherford, married the couple at nearby church in an effort to make peace and avoid conflict.

“I didn’t want to have a controversy within the church, and I didn’t want a controversy to affect the wedding of Charles and Te’Andrea,” Weatherford said in an interview with the Huffington Post.  “I wanted to make sure their wedding day was a special day.”

Charles Wilson has said members of the congregation, nevertheless, have threatened to fire the pastor.

But some churchgoers denied that the story being played out in the media is fully accurate.  They said it has caused hardship.

“There’s a lot of people in the church that are suffering inner turmoil over this issue, said church member Ralph Miley in an interview with WAPT News.

The Jackson television station also reported on the congregation’s frustration, with one woman swinging her purse at one of the station’s reporters before entering the church for Sunday morning services.

Other congregants acknowledge the pastor was trying to do the right thing.

“He was trying to gain time to deal with racism among the few members of our church who created this situation,” said retired Southern Baptist pastor Robert Mack to WAPT News.

The state and national church leaders also said Monday they are praying for the church and are ready to help, if needed.

“We are all saddened when any sin, including the sin of racism, rears its head,” said Southern Baptist Convention spokesperson Sing Oldham.  “Part of our gospel is that we are being redeemed.  We are flawed, failed creatures, and redemption is a process.”

So far, the church has not contacted state officials for any assistance.

A community rally for racial unity was planned in Crystal Springs for Monday evening.

For further information, please see:

The Clarion-Ledger — Southern Baptists: Mississippi Church Wrong to Reject Black Couple’s Wedding — 30 July 2012

WAPT News — Baptist Bodies Call on Church to Reject Racism — 30 July 2012

The Washington Post — State and National Baptist Leaders Ask Church that Turned Down Black Wedding to Reject Racism — 30 July 2012

USA Today — Baptist Groups: Miss. Church Wrong to Not Marry Black Couple — 29 July 2012

WAPT News — Members Speak out on Crystal Springs Church Controversy — 29 July 2012

The Huffington Post — Black Couple says Racism Forced Wedding Relocation — 28 July 2012

Four Sentenced to Death for Involvement in Iran Bank Fraud Scandal

By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran — Four people have been sentenced to death by an Iranian court for their involvement in the largest ever bank fraud scandal in the country’s history.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied any government involvement in the scandal. (Photo Courtesy of BBC News)

Two other defendants received life sentences, while 33 more will spend up to 25 years in jail, the chief prosecutor was quoted as saying.

“According to the sentence that was issued, four of the defendants in this case were sentenced to death,” Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told IRNA, the country’s state-run news agency.

In addition to jail time, some were sentenced to flogging, ordered to pay fines, and banned from holding government jobs.

The case became public in September 2011, when an investment firm was accused of forging documents to obtain credit from at least seven Iranian banks over a four-year period.  It reportedly involved forged documents used to secure a $2.6 billion loan.  The money was reportedly used to buy government-owned companies under the government’s privatization scheme.

Allegations included that the embezzlement was carried out by people close to the political elite or with their assent.  The story’s breaking fueled weeks of political conflict between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denied his government’s involvement last year, and Iran’s ruling hierarchy of clerics.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while criticizing financial corruption and acknowledging the political damage, said in televised comments last year that the media should not “drag out the issue.”

“Some want to use this event to score points against the country’s officials,” Khamenei said.  “The people should know the issue will be followed up on.”

Businessman Amir Mansoor Khosravi, who the Iranian media has described as the mastermind behind the scheme, is said to have forged letters of credit from Iran’s Bank Saderat to fund dozens of companies and buy a state-owned steel factory.  Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Iran’s largest bank–the state-owned Bank Melli–resigned because of the scandal.  He then fled to Canada, where records indicate that he owns a $3 million home.

Mohseni-Ejei did not name the defendants on trial, and the Iranian media only identified them by their initials.  State television broadcast parts of the trial, but blurred out the faces of the accused.  He believes the case demonstrates that Iran can appropriately deal with high level fraud.

“The government, parliament, and all available devices were used to pursue the issue so that corruption can be fought in an open manner,” he said.

Despite the Prosecutor General’s claim, one defendant believes that while the judiciary vigorously pursued some low-level players, senior officials involved in the scheme had gone unpunished.  “Many other banking officials are outside of prison right now,” an unnamed steel company official asserted.  “Why are you able to put us on trial and have nothing to do with them?”

For further information, please see:

Al Arabiya — Four Sentenced to Death for Iran’s Biggest Bank Fraud — 30 July 2012

Al Jazeera — Death Terms in Iran Bank Scandal — 30 July 2012

BBC News — Four Sentenced to Death over $2.6bn Iran Bank Fraud — 30 July 2012

The Guardian — Iran Sentences Four to Death Over Bank Fraud With Political Fallout — 30 July 2012

Reuters — Iran Sentences Four People to Death for Bank Fraud — 30 July 2012

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Los Angeles Times Op-Ed Piece: Consign Bush’s “Torture Memos” to History

by Morris D. Davis
Op-Ed for L.A. Times

How should we mark the 10th anniversary of the effort by the Bush administration to justify torture?  By ensuring it never happens again.

As the Bush administration developed its interrogation policies, it concealed various forms of torture under the moniker “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Above: Military police guard cells at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images / April 7, 2004)

The Bush administration “torture memos” will be 10 years old this week. As the administration developed its interrogation policies, it concealed various forms of torture under the moniker “enhanced interrogation techniques.” It consulted with the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice on the legality of these techniques, including waterboarding, walling (slamming detainees against walls), forcing detainees into stress positions and subjecting them to sleep deprivation. Ultimately, the OLC provided legal cover for the use of most of these techniques.

On Aug. 1, 2002, in a memo addressed to the general counsel of the CIA, Assistant Atty. Gen. Jay Bybee wrote: “When the waterboard is used, the subject’s body responds as if the subject were drowning…. The subject may experience the fear or panic associated with the feeling of drowning.”

I know something about the feeling of drowning. The closest I’ve come to death was more than 20 years ago, while I was white-water rafting in West Virginia with some Air Force friends. As the raft careened through the rapids, two of us were tossed out. As the current pulled us past a large rock that jutted out into the river, it curled down and took me with it. I could see the surface five or six feet above me, but the water pushed me down harder than my legs could push me up. As I struggled to live, I thought about my wife who was pregnant with a child I might never see.

It was as if time slowed down. I experienced 10 minutes worth of thoughts in the minute I was underwater. Finally, my lungs aching, I pushed away from the rock rather than up toward the surface, and seconds later, I popped up, gasping, terrified.

As the CIA memo makes clear, that is the point of waterboarding. “Any reasonable person undergoing this procedure … would feel as if he is drowning … due to the uncontrollable physiological sensation he is experiencing…,” Bybee wrote. “It constitutes a threat of imminent death.” Nonetheless, he concludes that such treatment would not be torture because the harm would not be prolonged.

I suspect that Bybee never fell off a raft into white water, and never came close to death by drowning, because if he had, I feel certain he would have had a very different view of whether it causes prolonged harm.

Past administrations, both Republican and Democratic, had opposed torture, but the Bush administration embraced it by renaming it enhanced interrogation techniques and claiming that it was necessary for our national security. Upon taking office, President Obama issued an executive order halting the use of torture.

Torture is counterproductive. Professional interrogators — Ali Soufan of the FBI, Matthew Alexander of the Air Force and Glenn Carle of the CIA — have said this clearly.

Torture is always illegal. The United States ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1994, agreeing to abide by the following proscription: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

Torture is also a moral abomination. As the National Religious Campaign Against Torture — made up of member institutions representing followers of the Bahai faith, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and more — attests, it runs contrary to the teachings of all religions and dishonors all faiths. It is an egregious violation of the human rights and dignity of each and every person and results in the degradation of all involved — the victim, perpetrator and policymakers.

“Any reasonable person” understands that the United States engaged in torture during the Bush administration. And yet members of that administration still defend their actions. They argue that the enhanced interrogation techniques they used or authorized were not torture. Referring to the now discredited torture memos, they claim that the Department of Justice verified that these techniques were not criminal acts.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has undertaken an investigation into the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques allowed by the memos. It is essential that its findings be released to the public so that the American people can know the truth about what was done in their name.

And we should mark the 10th anniversary of the effort by the Bush administration to justify torture, remembering that as a nation founded on religious and moral values, we must work to ensure that U.S. government-sponsored torture never occurs again.

Retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis is former chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and is now on the faculty of the Howard University School of Law. He will participate in a panel discussion about torture at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday at the Hammer Museum.

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

Venezuela to Withdraw From Inter-American Human Rights Court

By Heba Girgis
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CARACAS, Venezuela—Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently announced that Venezuela will be withdrawing from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, also known as the IACrtHR. The IACrtHR makes up the human rights protection system of the Organization of American States, which works to uphold and protect basic human rights and freedoms in the Americas.

President Chavez Withdraws From Inter-American Court of Human Rights to Save Venezuela’s “Dignity.” (Photo Courtesy of BBC)

Chavez also noted that the country will now begin its one-year waiting period. Once the waiting period has passed, Venezuela will no longer be a party of the American Convention on Human Rights. The country is also removing itself from the Costa Rica Inter-American Court of Human Rights as well as the Washington Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Chavez made this decision after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights gave a ruling that he found to be “a travesty of justice.” The Costa Rica-based court held that Venezuela violated the rights of a prisoner, Raul Dias, who was convicted of bombing a diplomatic government office in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas in 2003. The court found that Diaz was being held in inhumane jail conditions.

“Venezuela is pulling out of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights out of dignity,” said Chavez during a military ceremony in the Venezuelan town of Puerto Cabello. Chavez said that the court was ruling on the side of terrorism by ruling in favor of Diaz.

“We are an independent country,” he said, as Chavez also explained that this decision would allow Venezuela to assert and construct a fuller sense of national liberty and independence.

On the other side, Venezuelan human rights activists are concerned that if the Venezuelan government goes through with this decision and withdraws from the Organization of American States, victims of future human rights abuses will have fewer venues in which to seek protection and raise their cases.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland spoke to reporters last week and said that if Venezuela withdraws from the human rights court the country “would be sending a deeply regrettable message about its commitment to human rights and democracy.”

In early May, 2012, Rupert Colville, the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged Venezuela to cooperate with regional and international human rights mechanisms and organizations and to stay away from any decisions that would weaken individual protections against human rights violations. The country will go through its one-year waiting period before fully pulling out of the Organization of American States.

 

For further information, please see:

ABC News – Venezuela to Pull Out of OAS Human Rights Bodies – 27 July 2012

BBC News – Venezuela to Withdraw From Regional Human Rights Court – 25 July 2012

UN News Centre – UN Concerned Over Venezuela’s Possible Withdrawal From Human Rights Body – 4 May 2012

Venezuela Analysis – Venezuela to Withdraw From OAS’s Human Rights Court – 30 April 2012