Derechos Humanos / Human Rights

 Beijing, Aug.30.- Huang Yanlai was 74 when he first raped 11-year-old Xiao Yu. He threatened her with a bamboo-harvesting knife while she was out gathering snails in the fields for her grandmother in Nan village, Guangxi province, in China’s south-west. Over the following two years, Xiao Yu (a nickname meaning Light Rain) was raped more than 50 times, her hands tied and a cloth stuffed in her mouth. She was a left-behind child, entrusted to relatives while her parents worked in distant cities. Her father returned home once a year. Told that his daughter was in trouble, he asked her what was wrong but she was too frightened to tell him. So he beat her up.

Her abusers bribed her to keep quiet, giving her about 10 yuan (about $1.50) each time they raped her, threatening that “if this gets out, it will be you who loses face, not us.” They were right. When Xiao Yu finally confided to her grandmother and went to the police, the villagers called her a prostitute and drove her out of town.

La Habana, 16 de agosto de 2016

Denuncia: Activistas detenidos

El pasado sábado 13 de agosto los activistas de #Otro18 y de la MUAD, María Mercedes Benítez Rodríguez, pastor Manuel Sardiñas Sañú y José Pacheco Cuevas, miembros también de Arco Progresista, fueron detenidos al mediodía en sus respectivas casas en Santiago de Cuba, de forma arbitraria y sin orden de detención, acusados por la supuesta autoría de más de 30 graffitis #Otro18 que aparecieron en distintos puntos de la ciudad.

La activista María Mercedes fue liberada horas más tarde, pero los otros dos restantes se encuentran aún en la Tercera Unidad de Policía de ese territorio del oriente del país. La orden de detención preparada a posteriori por la policía política recoge una vaga y genérica acusación de atentado contra la seguridad del Estado, que no se fundamenta en un hecho concreto y que convierte el título de uno de los capítulos del Código Penal en una figura de delito.

The World Movement for Democracy recently interviewed, Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, about the struggles and triumphs of being an activist in Cuba. The Ladies in White - mothers, wives and relatives protesting on behalf of political prisoners - are frequently targets of state-sponsored violence in Cuba. Cuban authorities often disrupt, arrest, and physically assault the peaceful activists during their weekly Sunday marches. Despite the government's brutality, the Ladies in White have continued to march on, garnering support from the international community, and inspiring Cuban activists to stand up for democracy.

Activists have even resorted to life-threatening hunger strikes to advance their protest against the state's use of violence.

July 28 (DP.net).─ According to a well known catholic bulletin devoted to advocate Catholic views on political and ethical issues, the ACLU is engaged in a propaganda war against Catholic healthcare. "It has filed a lawsuit demanding all documents related to complaints against Catholic hospitals in a fishing expedition designed to show that, by refusing to perform abortions, Catholic hospitals are somehow 'harming' women."

They reject the ACLU's "anti-religion, pro-abortion, radical agenda", including these demands in their anti-Catholic campaigns:

• A federal mandate forcing all Catholic hospitals to provide "emergency reproductive health care";
• A 'systemic investigation' by the federal government of Catholic hospitals and "all necessary corrective action where violations are found" ─ a meassure only targeting Catholic hospitals; and,
• Changes in federal law to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions on demand.

The Obama administration's Health and Human Services agency recently announced new directives demanding that non-religious hospitals perform abortions and sex changes or they will no longer qualify for Medicare reimbursements. After a legal fight on religious freedom, Catholic hospitals were exempted from this new rule, but the ACLU keeps trying with new lawsuits.

Last January, Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, declared on this issue that "laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed". In order to justify abortions on demand, she added: "I believe that the potential for life begins at conception. I am a Methodist, as you know. My church has struggled with this issue. In fact, you can look at the Methodist Book of Discipline and see the contradiction (but) individuals must be entrusted to make this profound decision".

The ACLU legal attacks, the HHS directive and candidate Clinton's beliefs are considered by the Church as an all-out offensive against Catholic ethics and religious freedoms. The ACLU is so radical in its defense of abortion that it has held auctions to pay for them. Furthermore, it has championed the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would have required Catholic hospitals to perform abortions or lose federal funding. This Law did not pass Congress and never made it to President Obama’s desk, though he pledged to sign it.

A recent lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was based on the following arguments: