“A city’s nightmare revisited”

Taken from: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012041755609/National-news/a-citys-nightmare-revisited.html

April 17, 2012

Cambodians will gather today to pray for the souls of some 1.7 million of their countrymen brutally killed by the Khmer Rouge on the 37th anniversary of the day that the regime seized power and began forcibly evacuating Phnom Penh.

At the Choeung Ek killing fields, the mass grave in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district where thousands of skulls are stacked as a reminder of the scale of the regime’s atrocities, 50 monks will be joined by some 500 members of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party.

Ke Sovannorth, secretary general of the SRP, said yesterday it was a time to remember the awful three years, eight months and 20 days the regime ruled the country.   “It is a historic day. We will remember and never want it to happen again, because this regime made women widows and separated children from their parents,” he said.

Svay Thida, now 50, remembered yesterday that she was 11 years old on the day when the Khmer Rouge ordered her family and about two and a half million others who were mostly refugees to leave their homes in Phnom Penh. “We were asked to leave our home in only three days, but never returned for more than 3 years,” she said. Though many were unaware of the horrors to come, Svay Thida said she had heard that some of her wealthy neighbours were so frightened of the advancing Khmer Rouge that they had elected to poison themselves in their own homes rather than face certain death.

The Khmer Rouge systematically targeted intellectuals and people with “bourgeois” backgrounds, forcing everyone to write personal biographies and extracting “confessions” through torture. They sought to purify the population through an agrarian revolution under which perhaps one quarter of the population was killed through starvation, overwork and murder.

Photojournalist Al Rockoff said he had seen first-hand the type of brutality the Khmer Rouge regime was willing to exact on civilians as early as 1974, when troops fighting for then president Lon Nol retook the town of Oudong from the insurgents. “There were thousands of civilian and military massacred there. It was pretty obvious of what they capable of doing to civilians – not on the battlefield, not in combat, just the summary execution of many people,” he said.

But Rockoff, who remained in Phnom Penh after April 17 for several weeks and took some of the most enduring photos of the violence that was engulfing the country, said most of the Western media was simply not interested. More than three decades after Cambodia was liberated from the Khmer Rouge, Western interest in the former regime is now high as the Khmer Rouge tribunal tries the regime’s three most senior surviving leaders.

Chum Mey, a survivor of the notrious S-21 prison who testified against the prison’s director, the first man convicted by the court – Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch – said he resented the excuses being made in the present trial by the highest-profile suspect, Brother No 2 Nuon Chea. The 82-year-old questioned how Nuon Chea could testify that Phnom Penh was evacuated “to find enemies”. “Were all of the evictees from Phnom Penh enemies? We felt pain, but now we just want a confession to make national reconciliation,” he said.

KONY 2012

Taken from: http://kony2012.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/

KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.

Whether you support the movement or not, if you are interested, you can get more information and join the movement using the link above.

“Racial tensions high in Riverside after slaying of ROTC student”

Taken from: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/riverside-police-seek-publics-help-in-shooting-death-of-rotc-high-school-student.html

March 5, 2012

Relatives of a Riverside high school freshman who was shot and killed near his grandmother’s house pleaded on Monday for the public’s help to solve the seemingly random murder.

Lareanz Simmons, 14, was killed on the evening of Feb. 23 by a young Latino gunman who stepped out of a car, walked up to him and opened fire. The shooting breaks years of relative calm in an area of Riverside that has a history of violent clashes between rival black and Latino gangs.

Racial tensions have escalated sharply since the shooting occurred in Riverside’s eastside neighborhood, where police have responded to an apparent uptick in shootings and confiscated an increasing number of firearms being stockpiled by parolees and crime suspects, authorities said.

Investigators said Simmons, who was African American, was a good student and had no gang ties. The freshman was a member of the Junior ROTC program at Riverside’s Poly High School, and had dreams of joining the military or becoming a police officer, said his grandmother Bernice Hobdy. ”Whoever did this, they don’t know what they’ve done. They’ve hurt the whole family. You can’t describe the pain,” Hobdy said. “It could happen to you. It could happen to your son. Whoever did this, I don’t know how you just could just jump out of a car and shoot someone that you don’t even know, that’s never hurt anyone.”

Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz during a Monday morning press conference asked for the public’s help to identify the suspects in the shooting, saying there was a $50,000 reward for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of the killer.

Diaz said the department’s gang unit, patrol officers and SWAT team have saturated the neighborhood, searching the homes of parolees and interviewing known gang members. Solving the murder is a priority not only because Simmons’ family deserves justice, Diaz said, but also to calm the rising tensions in the neighborhood.  ”We don’t know why Lareanz was killed,” Diaz said. “As long as we don’t know, and the community doesn’t know, there are a lot of community tensions out there … We are seeing what appears to be an increasing number of suspects carrying weapons and stockpiling weapons and ammunitions in their homes.”

Woodie Rucker-Hughes, head of the local NAACP chapter, said violence and gang activity in Riverside’s eastside neighborhood had been on the decline in the past few years, with black and Latino community leaders working together to address any lingering racial animosities. ”It had reached a point where there was a calm, which we enjoyed. But we were always cognizant that there would be some out there -– I call them knuckleheads –- who wanted to keep a schism between black and brown,” Rucker-Hughes said. “It’s tense now. There are more shootings in the neighborhood. Something is brewing.”

Simmons was shot as he was walking down Georgia Street to his grandmother’s house around dusk, heading back home after borrowing a video game from a friend. When he was about a half-block away, a midsized tan, gray or bronze car drove up beside him and the suspect jumped out of a passenger-side door. He walked up to Simmons, who witnesses said backed away from the assailant, raised a handgun and fired five or six shoots, police said.

Simmons managed to stagger back to his grandmother’s driveway, where he collapsed. He remained on life support for several days before he died.

Det. Ron Sanfilippo said investigators are pursuing several leads in the case but at this point have no suspects. Detectives are trying to determine if the shooting may have been related to a gang initiation or retaliation for another incident, but all the evidence gathered thus far indicates that Simmons was a random target, he said. ”We know somebody knows who did this. They just need to come forward and let the police know and get this person off the street,” said Sanfilippo. “A shooter like that who takes out a 14-year-old who is not involved in gangs is more of a coward than anything else.”

Police are urging anyone with information to contact the police at (951) 353-7105 or, for those who wish to remain anonymous, to contact the We Tip hotline at (800) 782-7463.

“Funeral for Powell boys draws 1,000-plus in Tacoma, Wash.”

Taken from: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/funeral-powell-boys-tacoma-washington.html

February 11, 2012

At a Saturday memorial service attended by more than 1,000 people, family and teachers remembered Charlie and Braden Powell, the two young brothers killed last week by their father, as “clever” and “curious” boys.

At the public funeral, their grandfather, Chuck Cox, thanked people for praying for them, saying “it helps us to know that there are good people in the world,” the Associated Press reported.

The boys’ remains were placed in a single coffin adorned with flowers. The service at the Life Center Church in Tacoma, about 20 miles north of where the boys were killed, drew people from as far away as Utah, where the boys once lived.

The boys died in a gasoline-fueled fire set by their father, Josh Powell, when they went to visit him last Sunday at his home in Graham, Wash. Powell was a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Susan Powell, in December 2009.

Many of the boys’ teachers shared memories during the memorial service. The Salt Lake Tribune, which was covering the event live, said Charlie’s kindergarten teacher told those at the service that the boy “was an amazing young man. He had an appreciation of nature I had never seen in someone so young,” she said. Many remembered the 7-year-old as a child fascinated with science and insects, often trying to sneak worms or caterpillars into the classroom. Charlie was about to get glasses and loved to write, dreaming up plans to market his book, according the Associated Press. ”He is safe in his mother’s arms,” said Tammy Ougheon, Charlie’s kindergarten teacher in Utah, the wire service quoted her as saying.

The younger brother, Braden, was also remembered fondly by his teachers, who said he enjoyed playing with cars and trains. The 5-year-old had “a sharp mind and big imagination” and was a “budding puzzle master … with contagious, joyful energy.” ”His little spirit lives on in the hearts of all who knew him,” said Kristie King, an instructor at a YMCA that Braden attended.

The family will have a private interment Monday.

“Why Microsoft’s So-Called ‘Avoid Ghetto’ App Is Really American”

Taken from: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/01/why_microsofts_so-called_avoid_ghetto_app_is_really_american.html

January 31, 2012

Microsoft has recently been at the center of a whirlwind of controversy over a new app that critics allege is downright racist. On January 3, the company was granted a patent for technology related to its “Pedestrian Route Production” application, a tool that that the company says would navigate the user “safely through neighborhoods with violent crime statistics below a certain threshold.”

While the patent makes no explicit references to race, the project has been unofficially dubbed the “Avoid Ghetto App” by various online news sites. Microsoft, for its part, has been silent throughout the ordeal, and declined to comment on the matter to Colorlines.com. But intentions aside, the fact that the app was so quickly racialized begs the larger question of how and why technology perpetuates systemic racism, and why consumers should care.

“Almost the moment this patent got granted, [this app] got racialized so that ‘violent crime’ became ‘mugging’, which became ‘black and Latino people’, which became ‘ghetto,’ ” says Sarah Chinn, a professor of English at the City University of New York and author of the book “Technology and the Logic of American Racism.” Chinn has been among Microsoft’s most vocal critics.

Microsoft’s app has stirred so much discussion, Chinn says, because the United States is a “very racist country. When you say the words ‘violent crime’, in the public imagination that turns into ‘dangerous urban black man or Latino man.’ “

Others disagree. Industry analyst Rob Enderline told NPR last week that Microsoft’s project is just a matter of technology trying to make life easier for users. “It’s part of an overall effort to make navigation systems more intelligent so they keep you out of danger, whether you’re driving or you’re on foot,” Enderle told NPR.

Yet even if that’s the case, it’s based on the widely held misconception that violent crime is more likely to hit random strangers. In fact, the opposite is true. The vast majority of violent crime happens to people who know each other. For instance, 75 percent of rapes are committed by someone the survivor already knows, according to statistics provided by San Francisco Women Against Rape. The majority of murders are committed by members of ones own racial group. Missouri has the nation’s highest black homicide rate, and when the Violent Prevention Center looked at statistics from 2009, it found that—whenever the relationship could be identified—76 percent of black murder victims were killed by someone they knew.

In Washington, D.C. and New York City, robberies are on the decline.

Huffington Post’s Black Voices points out that the FBI’s 2010 crime report revealed that whites were arrested more often for violent crimes that year than any other race. But, according to Chinn, the myth that black men in particular are more likely to perpetrate violent crime against white strangers resonates so strongly because it’s become an indelible part of America’s racial identity.

“This is a myth that’s been with us since the days of Reconstruction,” Chinn told Colorlines.com, calling the period an era of “terrorism against black people.” Chinn noted that whites unconsciously knew that they were the perpetrators of violence against black people, particularly sexual violence against black women. Thus the myth of dangerous black men evolved as way to justify racist violence against black communities. The logic, Chinn says, was “you’re violent so we have to criminalize you, we have to put you in jail, we have to stop-and-frisk you, and we have to move out of your neighborhoods.”

Microsoft’s new technology is just the latest in a series of scientific parallels with the past.

The problem isn’t the technology itself, but what people imagine the technology will do. So while DNA and finger printing may on the surface be seemingly race-neutral technologies that only offer specific information about someone’s body, they’re quickly used to reinforce people’s preconceived ideas about race. “Once they enter the public discourse in the United States it’s all about how can we identify [people of color] and prove that they are not as good as white people, or prove that segregation is justified,” says Chinn.

Chinn does not expect that Microsoft will market the app as it is now, but will fold it into its next generation of mapping technology. ”It’s really about why we should be afraid of certain neighborhoods and certain kinds of people. People take these technologies and they use them to ‘prove’ things that they actually already believe about people of various racialized groups.”

““Angry Brides” game targets Indian dowry demands”

Taken from: http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/angry-brides-game-targets-indian-dowry-demands-202113465.html

January 17, 2012

Anger at the practice of demanding dowries, which can lead to violence against brides, has prompted a takeoff of “Angry Birds” called “Angry Brides” that aims to highlight the illegal practice still prevalent in many South Asian countries. Dowries — such as jewelry, clothes, cars and money — are traditionally given by the bride’s family to the groom and his parents to ensure she is taken care of in her new home.

The custom was outlawed more than five decades ago. But it is still widely practiced, with the groom’s family demanding even more money after marriage, leading to mental and physical harassment that can drive the woman to suicide. In the worst cases, she may be murdered by her husband and his family, often in so-called “stove burnings” where she is doused in kerosene and set on fire.

“The Angry Brides game is our way of throwing a spotlight on the nuisance of dowry,” said Ram Bhamidi, senior vice president and head of online marketing for Shaadi.com, a matrimonial website with two million members. ”According to a 2007 study … there is a dowry-related death every four hours in India. We condemn this menace and have consistently run campaigns on social media to help create awareness of the issue.”

The name of the app, available on the group’s home page, is a spinoff from the globally popular “Angry Birds” game. Its home page shows a red-clad, eight-armed woman resembling a powerful female Hindu goddess.

Underneath, there is a caption: “A woman will give you strength, care and all the love you need … NOT dowry!”

To play the game, users have to try and hit three dodging grooms — a pilot, builder and doctor. There is a wide array of weapons to choose from, including a stiletto shoe, a frying pan, broomstick, tomato and loafer. Each groom has a price tag, starting at 1.5 million rupees ($29,165). Every time the player hits a groom, his value decreases and money is added to the player’s Anti-Dowry Fund, which is saved posted on their Facebook page.

“Since we launched the game last week, more than 270,000 people have liked the app. Both men and women seem to be playing it,” said Bhamidi.

According to latest figures from India’s National Crime Records Bureau, there were 8,391 cases of dowry-related deaths in the country and 90,000 cases of torture and cruelty toward women by their husbands or family in 2010.