Nashville, Tennessee media WKRN is reporting that a 29-year-old white male attacked a movie theater in Antioch, TN, with a hatchet and a gun, spraying chemical pepper spray on those in the theater, while he wore a mask. Three people were injured and he injured one man with his axe. The man was shot by police after they wore gas masks and entered the theater, while the terrorist sought to flee out the back door.
He had two backpacks which were “hoax bombs” intended to delay police while he escaped.
Scene of Theater Attack in Antioch, TN (Source: WKRN)
On August 4, 2015, two white male terrorists are being sought in connection with shootings at a U.S. military group at the Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Mississippi, which reportedly was part of “Jade Helm 15” training exercise. The men got off a number of gunshots at U.S. military from outside the camp, but there are no reported injuries.
The men were believed to be driving a maroon Ford Ranger truck reportedly with “broken arrow” message on top, which has been found.
They remain at large, however.
The phrase “broken arrow” is a coded phrase used as a military signal asking for help “when a unit or camp is overrun.” Those with information regarding the incident, are asked to contact the Perry County authorities at 601-964-8461.
In a related case on August 1, 2015, the FBI arrested three men in North Carolina for developing bombs as part of their planned opposition to the “Jade Helm 15″ training exercise. The FBI reports that ” 50, Christopher James Barker, 41, of Gastonia, and Christopher Todd Campbell, 30, of Mt. Holly, NC ., were arrested on Saturday, August 1, 2015, for conspiring to violate federal laws governing firearms and explosive devices and related charges, announced Acting United States Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the Western District of North Carolina.” ABC reported that “On June 18 law enforcement received information that Litteral and Barker were attempting to make explosives.”
“White Nationalists” and other extremist groups, such as the “American 3rd Party” have been inciting the public that the military training exercise operation is a plan to take over America.
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) seeks to promote a consistent stand in support of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for all people. These universal human rights include the dignity and security of our fellow human beings. This is specifically stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Article 3 “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” and in Article 1 “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” This is what the nations of the world have agree to for over 60 years.
The challenge for those who respect such human rights is to hold the world accountable to these declarations, including the challenge to the Nazi Eugenics based concept of “organ harvesting” from those whose lives the Nazis felt had “life unworthy of life.”
R.E.A.L.’s support for such universal human rights and dignity has included past R.E.A.L. campaigns to protest the sales of body parts from prisoners in Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-controlled China, including reports of body parts obtained from prisoners of conscience who follow the Falun Gong practice, a practice that the CCP-controlled Chinese totalitarians view as “body part harvesting.” R.E.A.L. promotes petitions to call for the end of such organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitoners.
On the issue of such “organ harvesting” of the Falun Gong, transplant doctor Tom Treasure has written: “If Matas and Kilgour are correct, the organs come from incarcerated members of an innocent sect—and the perpetrators are of necessity medical practitioners. As the allegation unfolds, the story seems horrific to the point of being almost beyond belief. So alarmed was I on learning of this allegation that I struggled to make sense of it. The element of the story that horrifies me most, if it is true, is that it is my medical colleagues, the doctors, who perpetrate these acts.”
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) Calls for the CCP and All Chinese Doctors to Reject the CCP Demands for Organ Harvesting on Chinese Prisoners, End Such Killings for Organs and Atrocities, and to End the Crimes Against Humanity Perpetuated against Falun Gong Practitioners (Photo: NDTV file photo)
The challenge of body part sales of those who do so unwillingly by force, as well as those impoverished and desperate individuals who are forced by extreme economic oppression, is an issue which people of conscience must consider in respecting our shared universal human rights.
For context, we must remember that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), signed on December 10, 1948, by the nations of the world, including the United States and China, was a response to atrocities by the Nazi Germans during World War II.
The UDHR begins with noting that such “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.” These barbarous acts have included Nazis committing experimentation on live bodies, as well as the murder of children, Russians, political prisoners, and Jewish people for their body parts.
Dr. Tom Treasure writes that: “In the 1930s the first steps on the road to the holocaust were taken—and they were taken with the complicity of doctors. How this came about merits attention for, if we do not recognize the facts and understand how it happened, how can we guard against it happening again?”
As reported by Emily Bazelon, “The Max Planck Society admitted that its collection contained the tissue of euthanasia victims—including 700 children.”
The Nazis provided body parts from the Holocaust to medical institutions throughout Europe. Reports have recently surfaced of such body parts of victims of the Holocaust turning up in France, as they have appeared in collections of human body parts and specimens throughout Europe. On July 19, 2015, the Independent reported that the “remains of 86 Jewish Holocaust victims used for human experiments by Nazis found hidden in Strasbourg lab” in France.
Emily Bazelon reports that “In June 1945, a Boston neurologist named Leo Alexander, a consultant for the United States secretary of war, visited Julius Hallervorden, a doctor and member of the Nazi Party who in 1938 became head of the neuropathology department of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research (one of the world’s pre-eminent psychiatric research centers, with a building financed in the 1920s by the Rockefeller Foundation). Hallervorden showed Alexander a collection of 110,000 brain samples from 2,800 people. Hallervorden said that with the director of his institute, Hugo Spatz, he had harvested the brains of victims of the T-4 killings—the Nazi program to gas psychiatric patients at six “euthanasia’ centers in Germany and Austria. ‘Hallervorden was present at the time of the killings and removed brains from the murdered victims,’ Seidelman writes. Alexander reported what he learned, but no one took action against Hallervorden and Spatz. They were allowed to help relocate the Kaiser Wilhelm institute to Frankfurt, Germany, where it was renamed the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research.” (and where it continues to exist today).
German Nazi Doctors Hallervorden and Spatz were involved in Nazi atrocities in studying the brains of euthanasia victims from the Holocaust
In describing his concern about modern day organ transplants from Chinese victims, Dr. Tom Treasure recounts that the Nazi actions against human dignity and defiling of bodies (living and dead) to rob them of their organs, began with the idea that some human beings do not deserve the universal human right of life. He writes that “Their state was captured in the German phrase lebensunwertes Leben meaning ‘life unworthy of life'”.
But the process of removing the body parts and organs of the powerless and the poor has been with us much longer than the Nazi violence, and we have seen it as part of the history of white supremacy in the United States – either directly or indirectly.
Emily Bazelon has also reported: “In the United States, medical students robbed graves, often of African-Americans. ‘In Baltimore the bodies of colored people exclusively are taken for dissection because the whites do not like it, and the colored people cannot resist,’ a British travel writer observed in 1838. When paupers were the target of body snatching, the practice was justified by their poverty. ‘Why would those who have made war on society or have been a burden to it be permitted to say what shall be done with their remains?’ the Washington Post asked in an 1877 editorial. ‘Why should they not be compelled to be of some use after death, having failed to be of value to the world during life?’ ”
Reports on “Night Doctors” stated African-Americans were killed by some doctors to be used for dissections. In one report, Johns Hopkins Hospital was believed to be a source of “needle men” and the “black bottle men” (poisons given to African-Americans so that they could die and be used in dissections.) They were thought to kidnap African Americans right off the street. A woman from the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks states that “You’d be surprised how many people disappeared in East Baltimore when I was a girl. I’m telling you, I lived here in the fifties when they got Henrietta, and we weren’t allowed to go anywhere near Hopkins. When it got dark and we were young, we had to be on the steps, or Hopkins might get us.”
People around the world from impoverished countries continue to face a new type of slavery – moving from slavery of labor to their organs. Such slavery and persecution of the bodies of the powerless and impoverished is a rejection of our shared universal human rights.
If we support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), then we must reject the concept of racial, fascist, or other oppressive powers who decide that the lives of some are “not worthy of life.” This universal human right is not for some lives, but for all lives of our fellow human beings. It is a fundamental human right agreed to by the nations of the world.
We must consistently reject the idea that such powerless individuals’ bodies can be used to “harvest” their organs without their consents and as part of social and economic oppression of minority groups.
In the United States, yet another aspect of this ethical challenge to human rights of life and human dignity is being reported. The American news media is currently reporting on a breaking news story regarding the Planned Parenthood organization in Houston, Texas, where it is alleged that videos are being released which indicate that that some members of this organization sought compensation for fetal tissue from fetuses who were aborted. Planned Parenthood, which performs many functions to help women, denies this allegation. The current reporting on this breaking story has been based on the type and focus of compensation, with some stating the compensation was for logistics, as the selling of fetal tissue for profit is illegal (42 U.S. Code § 289g–2). The latest story is currently being reportedly largely by political groups on one side or another. But these issues must be considered not as a matter for political debate, but as larger issues for human rights debate. Without question, our universal human rights includes the support for women and all of their rights, including their right to have control over their body.
Regardless of outcome of this specific incident (still under investigation), those in support of our shared universal human rights must affirm that organ harvesting of those without a say in the matter is yet a different matter. Where we respect life as a universal human right, this provides a common moral compass to assess whether such actions respect the integrity and dignity, as part of our common universal human rights.
Given what we know of the history of human rights abuses regarding organ trafficking and body parts, human rights activists must hold medical organizations to a standards that respects the value of human life, human dignity, and that understands the amoral path that organ trafficking of the powerless leads our society.
If we support consistency in our universal human rights, we must be watchful for the idea that we have the right to decide for others whose “‘life is unworthy of life.”
Regardless of their race, philosophy, religion, economic status, and ability to defend their life and their body, their universal human rights must be defended.
White city leaders of the Maryland shore town of Pockomoke City held a meeting on August 3, 2015 to defend their actions in firing African-American police chief Kelvin Sewell. In addition, according to the AP, “The Justice Department sent community affairs representatives to a church gathering to listen to residents’ concerns.” The AP reported that there were “sharp exchanges between audience members, the mayor and Councilman George Tasker, who was accused of referring to supporters of Sewell as ‘you people.’ ”
Chief Sewell has stated that he was fired on June 29, 2015, because he refused demands by Pockomoke City Mayor Bruce Morrison, the city manager, and the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office that he fire two fellow African-American police officers who filed complaints saying they had been treated unfairly. The other two African-American police officers, Franklin L. Savage and Lt. Lynell Green, had EEOC complaints that they were working in a hostile, racist working environment.
The Washington Post states that “The officers alleged in complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that they faced racism that was overt and rampant — allegations the city denies. Among the incidents alleged: a food stamp superimposed with President Obama’s face that was left on a black detective’s desk and a text message that read, ‘What is ya body count nxxxx?’ ”
Andrew G. McBride, co-counsel for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, told the Washington Post that “This is one of the most egregious cases of primary racial discrimination and retaliation for assertion of rights before the EEOC that I’ve seen.” “Chief Sewell has a fantastic record as a police officer. He was terminated because he stood up for two African American officers who filed an EEOC complaint.”
“Its current troubles began three years ago when detective Franklin L. Savage was detailed to the Worcester County Criminal Enforcement team. The eight-member task force was made up of officers from Ocean City, Dorchester County, Maryland State Police and Pocomoke City. Savage was the only African American assigned to it. Savage said that during his two years on the task force, he was consistently subjected to racism and discrimination, including the repeated use of the ‘n-word’ and references to the Ku Klux Klan. In December 2013, he walked outside for a lunch break and found a bloody deer tail on the windshield of his unmarked police car, he said in his EEOC complaint. A group of white officers stood nearby, laughing. Four months later, he alleged, the food stamp with Obama’s face superimposed on it was left on his desk. Savage, now 35, reported the incidents to his supervisor, but he said the behavior did not stop. ‘Each day I went to work, I felt hurt, ashamed and confused. Racism still exists,’ Savage said. ‘And we took an oath to do the right thing each day.’ The Maryland State Police Criminal Enforcement Division eventually found that Savage’s complaints against one corporal were justified and promised in a letter that the offender would be punished.”
“Last year, Savage returned to the Pocomoke City police department, where he said the harassment and discrimination continued. Savage said he was stripped of his title of detective and moved to administrative duty, checking computer serial numbers and clearing old files. He filed a complaint with the EEOC on July 21, 2014. Lt. Lynell Green said the harassment against him began after he attended a mediation session in support of Savage. ‘It all started when I stood behind Detective Savage,’ said Green, 49, who said his overtime pay was cut. ‘I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life.’ Green, a former Baltimore police officer who began working for Pocomoke City in 2011, filed an EEOC complaint March 15. ”
“During this time, Sewell said he was being pressured by Mayor Bruce Morrison, the city manager and the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office to fire the officers. Sewell filed an EEOC complaint March 9 and was fired after a 4-to-1 vote by the city council three months later.”
AP reports that “Diane Downing, the lone black member of the five-person council and sole vote against firing Sewell, said city officials and outside authorities wanted Savage fired because he could not be trusted after filing his EEOC complaint and would not be allowed to testify in court cases.”
Parts of the Maryland shore have been known for a greater tolerance of racist behavior and support for police brutality. We know the majority of people respect human rights and dignity, and we urge them to continue to speak out against such abuses. R.E.A.L. challenged the views of a Wicomico sheriff’s office in June 2015.
Father James Channan, O.P., the former Vice Provincial of the Dominican order in Pakistan, is director of the Dominican-run Peace Center in Lahore, Pakistan, and provided an interview to a Catholic charity on the conditions of persecution of minority Pakistan Christians. In that interview, when asked about the number of Pakistan Christians imprisoned for blasphemy, he stated: ” there are 130 Christians whose trials are proceeding.” He also made clear that this cruel and unjust “blasphemy law” was regularly abused as “a tool to settle business disputes or personal vendettas.”
Father Channan also reported that this blasphemy law is also used against Muslims (who are the vast majority of Pakistanis), with 950 Muslims charged with blasphemy (as R.E.A.L has also reported on). He clarified however that: “there is a big difference between accusations of Muslims and Christians: if one Muslim is accused, just one Muslim is accused. But in the case of a Christian being accused, an entire community, an entire neighborhood is accused. And in several cases the entire Christian village or a Christian neighborhood has been burned to ashes.”
Pakistan is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) ratified as of June 23, 2010, as well as a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Pakistan religious oppression of minorities, such as its repressive Blasphemy Law is in direct contradiction to its international agreement of ICCPR Article 18, which includes “1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”
We urge all – in Pakistan and around the world – to be responsible for equality and liberty.
