“Shooting at Sikh temple: 7 dead, including suspected gunman, police say”

There have been too many shootings. 

Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/sikh-temple-shooting-175002467.html

August 5, 2012

At least seven people were killed, including the suspected gunman, in a mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., south of Milwaukee on Sunday.

According to police, 911 dispatchers received multiple calls from the temple at approximately 10:25 a.m. local time. An officer who responded to the scene was treating a victim when he was “ambushed” by the suspected gunman in the parking lot, Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said. The veteran officer was shot multiple times and rushed to Milwaukee’s Froedtert Hospital where he underwent surgery, Edwards said.

The suspect was shot and killed by a second officer, police said. The gunman was not identified, and no motive was released. But according to Thomas Ahern, spokesman for the ATF Chicago bureau, the gunman was a white male in his early 40s. And federal law enforcement officials told NBC News the suspected gunman “had no obvious connection to domestic terror or white supremacist groups and apparently was not on any list of suspected terrorists.” And “while he had an arrest record, it was for minor offenses, one federal official said.”

Tactical units conducting a sweep of the 17,000-square-foot temple discovered four bodies inside and three—including the gunman—in the parking lot. Edwards said “weapons” were recovered, but would not elaborate. According to CNN, two semi-automatic handguns were recovered at the scene, and member of the temple described the gunman as tall male with what appeared to be a “9/11 tattoo.” Officials told NBC the suspect, who served in the U.S. Army, had many tattoos.

There were initial, unconfirmed reports of multiple shooters and a hostage situation, though police said they believe there was just one gunman.

A spokesman for Froedtert Hospital said a total of three victims, including the officer, were admitted—two with gunshot wounds to the face and one with gunshot wounds to the abdomen. All three are in critical condition, the spokesman said. Other area hospitals were initially told to prepare for as many as 20 victims, though it appears that figure was precautionary.

Law enforcement officials are treating the case as an “act of domestic terrorism,” police said, and the FBI is leading the investigation. The names of the victims in Sunday’s shooting were not released.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Satwant Kaleka, the president of the temple, was one of the victims taken to Froedtert Hospital, according to his nephew, Gurmit Kaleka.

Dozens of worshipers, including women and children, were gathering for a meal before an 11:30 a.m. prayer service at the temple, or gurdwara, when the shooting occurred. There are about 500 members in the congregation, officials said. Witnesses described a chaotic scene as worshipers reportedly hid inside closets within the building after the gunman opened fire inside.

President Barack Obama was notified of the shooting shortly before 1 p.m. (ET) by chief counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a senior administration official told Yahoo News. ”Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the shooting that tragically took so many lives in Wisconsin,” Obama said. “At this difficult time, the people of Oak Creek must know that the American people have them in our thoughts and prayers, and our hearts go out to the families and friends of those who were killed and wounded. My administration will provide whatever support is necessary to the officials who are responding to this tragic shooting and moving forward with an investigation. As we mourn this loss which took place at a house of worship, we are reminded how much our country has been enriched by Sikhs, who are a part of our broader American family.”

Mitt Romney released a statement, too. “This was a senseless act of violence and a tragedy that should never befall any house of worship,” Romney said. “Our hearts are with the victims, their families, and the entire Oak Creek Sikh community. We join Americans everywhere in mourning those who lost their lives and in prayer for healing in the difficult days ahead.”

Wis. Gov. Scott Walker said his office is working with the FBI and local law enforcement in its investigation. ”Our hearts go out to the victims and their families as we all struggle to comprehend the evil that begets this terrible violence,” Walker said. “At the same time, we are filled with gratitude for our first responders, who show bravery and selflessness as they put aside their own safety to protect our neighbors and friends.”

The Indian Embassy in Washington called it a “tragic incident” and said it has been in touch with the National Security Council and local authorities to monitor the situation.

Sunday’s shooting comes less than a month after the Aurora, Colo., theater massacre, when 12 people were killed and 58 wounded during a midnight screening of “Dark Knight Rises.”

Sikhism is a 500-year-old monotheist faith with about 27 million followers worldwide, including about 300,000 in the United States. Since 9/11, Sikh groups in the United States have reported a rise in bias attacks. There have been more than 700 reports of hate-related incidents against Sikhs since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the Associated Press. “Sikhs don’t practice the same religion as Muslims,” the AP noted, “but their long beards and turbans often cause them to be mistaken for Muslims, advocates say.”

In the wake of the shooting in Wisconsin, law enforcement officials in other cities, including New York City, increased patrols near Sikh temples on Sunday. However, there is no known threat against Sikh temples in New York, the NYPD said.

“Hoodies and Hijabs: Uncovering Injustice”

Wake Forest and Salem Students, organized by Muslim peers, came together to show solidarity with Trayvonn Martin and Shaima Al Awadhi. Students are calling on our community leaders to condemn hate crimes and make sure our community is a safe place for everyone.

Please re-post this picture to raise awareness about these atrocities! Let’s encourage other Universities & schools to create photographs such as this one!

“Police unable to prevent rising violence against gays, Emo youths in Iraq”

Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/police-unable-prevent-rising-violence-against-gays-emo-201307745.html

March 11, 2012

Young people who identify themselves as so-called Emos are being brutally killed at an alarming rate in Iraq, where militias have distributed hit lists of victims and security forces say they are unable to stop crimes against the subculture that is widely perceived in Iraq as being gay.

Officials and human rights groups estimated as many as 58 Iraqis who are either gay or believed to be gay have been killed in the last six weeks alone — forecasting what experts fear is a return to the rampant hate crimes against homosexuals in 2009. This year, eyewitnesses and human rights groups say some of the victims have been bludgeoned to death by militiamen smashing in their skulls with heavy cement blocks.

A recent list distributed by militants in Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City neighbourhood gives the names or nicknames of 33 people and their home addresses. At the top of the paper are a drawing of two handguns flanking a Quranic greeting that extolls God as merciful and compassionate.

Then follows a chilling warning. ”We warn in the strongest terms to every male and female debauchee,” the Shiite militia hit list says. “If you do not stop this dirty act within four days, then the punishment of God will fall on you at the hands of Mujahideen.” All but one of the targets are men.

It’s not clear why the killings have stepped up in recent months. Many Iraqis are religiously conservative and have struggled against the western influence that has infiltrated their once-closed society in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Like many places in the Muslim world, homosexuality is extremely taboo in Iraq. Anyone perceived to be gay is considered a fair target, and the perpetrators of the violence often go free. The militants likely behind the violence intimidate the local police and residents so there is even less incentive to investigate the crimes.

Emo is short for “emotional” and in the West generally identifies teens or young adults who listen to alternative music, dress in black, and have radical hairstyles. Emos are not necessarily gay, but they are sometimes stereotyped as such.

To Iraqis, “Emo” is widely synonymous with “gay.” John Drake, an Iraq specialist for the British-based AKE security consulting firm, said Iraqi Emos are getting their hair cut so they aren’t immediately identified, and therefore targeted, in the wake of the new threats.

In the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora, a mostly-Sunni area, 35-year-old Hassan is afraid to leave his home. He plans on cutting his shoulder-length hair soon, but fears that his hormone-injected breast enhancements will be detected if he is stopped and patted down at one of the ubiquitous security checkpoints across the city. ”Today I went out of my house with a friend but we were severely harassed — some people told us that we need the double blocks,” said Hassan, referring to the cement blocks that attackers use to beat people. “I was scared so we returned home to hide.”

Hassan’s friend, a man who identified himself as 26-year-old Mustafa, called the recent hate crimes “the strongest and deadliest campaign against us.”

Hassan said he is gay but does not consider himself an Emo. He and Mustafa agreed to talk on condition that only their first names be used for fear they would be attacked if identified. One of Hassan’s friends, Saif Raad Asmar Abboudi, was beaten to death with concrete blocks in mid-February in a case that terrified gay Iraqis and panicked human rights watchdogs. “I feel very sorry for him,” Hassan said.

A Feb. 18 police report all but closes the case on Saif’s killing. It shows an initial investigation was completed and “the reason for the incident is unknown at the moment because the criminal is unknown.”

An Interior Ministry official said 58 young people have been killed across Iraq in recent weeks by unidentified gangs who accused them of being, as he described it, Emo. Sixteen were killed in Sadr City alone, security and political officials there said. Nine of the men were killed by bludgeoning, and seven were shot. No arrests have been made.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as did many of the people interviewed for this article, in fear of violent reprisals.

The Qur’an specifically forbids homosexuality, and Islamic militias in Iraq long have targeted gays in what they term “honour killings” to preserve the religious idea that families should be led by a husband and a wife. Those who do not abide by this belief are issued death sentences by the militias, according to the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, a human rights watchdog group. The same militias target women who have extramarital affairs.

“There is a strong wave of campaigns by clerics against homosexuals now,” said Ali al-Hilli, chairman of Iraqi LGBT, a human rights group based in London that provides two safe houses in Iraq for gays. “The police do not provide protection for them.” He said an estimated 750 gay Iraqis have been killed because of their sexual orientation since 2006.

Iraqi lawmaker Khalid Shwani, a Kurd, said targeting Emos because of their alternative lifestyles reflects an a growing intolerance of Iraqis’ civil rights. ”Those people are free to choose what they wear, or to believe in, or how they choose their clothes or the way they think,” Shwani said. He called on parliament to address the issue. ”The Emo of today could be any person tomorrow who tries to follow a specific way of living,” he said.

The killings have drawn so much attention that even hardline Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr weighed in Saturday, calling Emos “crazy fools” and a “lesion on the Muslim community” in a statement on his website. However, al-Sadr did not condone the violence, telling his followers “to end the scourge of Emo within the law.”

Iraq’s government has been wary about the Emo allure among its youth for months.

An August 2011 letter from the Education Ministry urges schools to crack down on what it considered abhorrent behaviour, including allowing camera phones in school “because students would use it for dirty movies,” says the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. Similarly, it prohibited students from leaving their classes during school hours “for any reason, because they might gather in the nearby cafes or coffee shops to practice dirty activities.” The letter attributed the social atrocities to “Emo, which is an infiltrated phenomenon in our society began to appear in some of our schools.”

Iraqi police squads who are specifically assigned to protect social minorities say they are almost powerless to stop the threats against gays and Emos. One officer assigned to the so-called social abuse squads said police are meeting with clerics to ask for help in urging the public against killing what he described as “the Emo or the vampires or Satan worshippers.”

The police official said he had no statistics to show how prevalent the violence is. ”It is true that there have been killings in Sadr City targeting these young men,” he said. “It is not right to end their lives in this manner.”

“Trial gets under way for Rutgers student accused of bullying”

Taken from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/24/justice/new-jersey-rutgers-trial/index.html?hpt=ju_c1

February 24, 2012

A former Rutgers University student went on trial Friday in New Jersey on hate crimes charges and other counts for allegedly using a webcam to spy on his roommate’s sexual encounter with another man.

The roommate, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge just days after Dahrun Ravi allegedly streamed the encounter remotely and allowed others to view it.

Ravi, 19, faces a 15-count indictment in connection with Clementi’s 2010 death that includes charges of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, tampering with physical evidence, witness tampering and hindering apprehension or prosecution.

The jury will be confronted with the question of whether Ravi’s alleged bullying was borne of a gay prejudice that prompted him to intimidate Clementi because of his sexual orientation.

The highly anticipated case drew more than 100 people inside the courtroom.

Last year, Ravi turned down a plea deal that would have allowed him to avoid jail time. The deal offered by Middlesex County prosecutors would have required the former student to undergo 600 hours of community service, counseling and to dispose of any information that could identify the man that Clementi was with.

Prosecutors also offered to help Ravi avoid deportation, though they said they could not guarantee it. Ravi is a citizen of India who had been studying on a visa at the New Jersey university.

A second student charged in the scandal, Molly Wei, 19, reached a plea deal earlier that requires her to testify against Ravi.

If convicted, he could face up to 10 years behind bars.

Less than a month after Clementi’s suicide, President Barack Obama released a taped video message condemning bullying.

“Ching Chong, Chinaman”: The De-Americanization of Asian Americans”

Taken from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/ching-chong-chinaman-the-_b_1176564.html

Eight U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan have been arrested in connection with the apparent suicide of Pvt. Danny Chen, a 19-year-old infantryman who was Chinese American. The arrests came after family members pressured the Pentagon to investigate allegations that Chen had been repeatedly taunted with racial slurs. The alleged anti-Asian bullying and taunting started during basic training when fellow soldiers used a mocking accent while calling him Jackie Chen; others allegedly told him to “go back to China.” The eight soldiers have been charged with dereliction of duty and manslaughter.

Asian American history is replete with examples of the de-Americanization of its members by vigilante racism. For some, the ostracism started immediately. Consider the poignant autobiography of Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who described her family’s arrival in San Francisco harbor in 1906:

As we walked down the gangplank … young White men were standing around, waiting to see what kind of creatures were disembarking. We must have been a very queer-looking group. They laughed at us and spit in our faces; one man kicked up Mother’s skirt and called us names we couldn’t understand. Of course, their actions and attitudes left no doubt about their feelings toward us.

Throughout their early life in the United States, Lee and her family were greeted with “For Whites Only” signs everywhere. Public restrooms, theaters, swimming pools, and barber shops were off limits. On Lee’s first day of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting: “Ching Chong, Chinaman, Sitting on a wall. Along came a White man, And chopped his head off.”

One of the more notorious, de-Americanizing, vigilante hate crimes of our time involved the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American man who lived near Detroit, Mich. Chin, who was out with friends celebrating his upcoming wedding, was confronted by Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two unemployed auto workers. Ebens made racial and obscene remarks toward Chin, calling him a “Chink” and a “Nip” and making comments about foreign car imports: “it’s because of you little m – f – that we’re out of work.” The Court of Appeals noted that Ebens “seemed to believe that Chin was Japanese” and may not have distinguished Asians of “Japanese and Chinese decent since there is testimony to show he made references to both.” A fight ensued and in the end, Chin was beaten to death by a baseball bat-wielding Ebens, while Nitz restrained Chin. Chin, who was a native of China, was adopted at the age of six by a Chinese American couple and became a U.S. citizen in 1965. Yet he was targeted because he represented Japan and its automobile manufacturers in the eyes of the culprits.

Even more recently, de-Americanizing antics have been directed at Chinese Americans. In the midst of an international crisis in April 2001, when a U.S. spy plane had to land on Chinese soil and China would not immediately release the plane, many Americans took their frustration out on Chinese Americans. A radio station disc jockey in Springfield, Ill. suggested boycotting Chinese restaurants. Another commentator called people with Chinese last names from his local telephone book to harass them. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Pat Oliphant ran a cartoon portraying a buck-toothed Chinese waiter yelling at a customer (depicted as Uncle Sam), “Apologize Lotten Amellican!” The American Society of Newspaper Editors was entertained by the renowned satirical group Capitol Steps, featuring a white man dressed in a black wig and thick glasses impersonating a Chinese official who gestured wildly as he said (in a manner reminiscent of the chant that greeted Mary Paik Lee on her first day in school): “ching, ching, chong, chong.”

The profiling examples of Asian Americans are unending: Wen Ho Lee, Japanese internment, hate crimes directed at Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians.

A few years ago when U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta was still in Congress (where he served for over 20 years), he was invited to attend a celebration of the reopening of a General Motors plant in his home district Santa Clara County, Calif. As an honored guest, he was greeted by a senior GM executive who thanked the Congressman for attending, and then complimented Mineta on his English. The executive then asked Mineta, “And how long have you lived in our country?” Mineta knew that when the GM executive looked at Mineta’s Japanese American features, the executive saw a “foreign face.” Yet Mineta was born in San Jose, Calif., in 1931 and attended the University of California, Berkeley. Unfortunately this certainly was not the first time he had been de-Americanized. During World War II, he was interned along with the rest of the Mineta family in Heart Mountain, Wyo.

Somehow the soldiers who allegedly harassed Pvt. Danny Chen felt licensed to engage in taunting and bullying of a young Chinese American who was trying to serve his country. Perhaps that’s the problem; those soldiers didn’t think that the United States was Chen’s country to serve. Somewhere the soldiers got the message that their private vigilante actions were condoned. That message has done much to solidify the image of people of color with immigrant roots as perpetual foreigners. This encourages private individuals to engage in discriminatory acts and reinforces their hostility. As such, Asian Americans become prime targets for de-Americanization by vigilante racists. And that can lead to death.