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Last Updated: May 30th, 2008 - 11:49:13 |
Genarlow Wilson Freed from Prison
Genarlow Wilson has been released from prison after serving two years for consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Friday that his 10-year sentence for committing a consensual sex act as a teen amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.
Wilson was convicted of a felony charge of aggravated child molestation in 2005 for receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl while he was 17. The Legislature has since changed that law so that situation now would be considered a misdemeanor.
Wilson's case received national attention as he fought for the sentence to be reversed. In Friday’s decision, Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote that the changes in the law "represent a seismic shift in the legislature's view of the gravity of oral sex between two willing teenage participants," reports Atlanta TV station WGCL.—The Times-Herald
Romney Twice Refers to bin Laden as “Barack Obama”
In campaign news, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is facing a controversy after he twice referred to Osama bin Laden as Barack Obama. Speaking Tuesday in South Carolina, Romney was addressing Democratic hopeful John Edwards’ claim that the “war on terror” has been a “bumper sticker” for the Bush administration.
Mitt Romney: “Just look at what Osama - Barack Obama - said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all the different types, to come together in Iraq. 'That is the battlefield. That's the central place.’”—www.DemocracyNow.org
Delaware State Shooting Victim Dies
Shalita K. Middleton, the freshman from historically Black Delaware State University who was wounded in a campus shooting last month, died Tuesday at the hospital, according to a statement from family. Freshman Loyer D. Braden, 18, allegedly shot the 17-year-old biology major from Washington in the abdomen on Sept. 21. Nathaniel Pugh, another 17-year-old student from Washington, suffered an ankle wound. “She struggled valiantly over the last several weeks and she was an inspiration,” the family said. “Ultimately, however, the internal injuries that she suffered were in the end too critical to overcome.”—www.BET.com
The March to Justice Continues
Black leaders gathered in Atlanta Tuesday to call for mass mobilization to draw attention to acts of violence and racism. On hand at the Richard B. Russell building in downtown Atlanta were Martin Luther King III; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Charles Steele, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and representatives of the Nation of Islam and the NAACP. “In the history of the civil rights movements, we have often had to appeal to the federal government to intervene. That was certainly the case during my father’s era of leadership,” said King, who’s calling for a Nov. 16 march on the nation’s capital. “[The march next month] is an appeal to the federal government to do something about the crimes, such as the nooses that seem to be popping up all over the nation.” A noose was hung on a tree at Jena High School last year, which is believed to be one of the issues that sparked a fight between six Black teens and a White classmate. The teens, known as the “Jena Six,” were initially charged as adults; although the charges in most cases were reduced, they still face the possibility of many years in jail. Their harsh prosecution is what led many to rally in Jena to demand a fairer shake from the justice system. Since the rally, dozens of nooses and other symbols of hate have cropped up at high schools and colleges, job sites, a military base and even Ground Zero in New York City.—www.BET.com
Megan Williams Speaks of Her Kidnapping, Rape and Torture
Megan Williams thought she was going to a party. That's why she tagged along with a woman she hardly knew, up a remote southern West Virginia hollow to a run-down trailer surrounded by beer cans and broken-down furniture.
"But there wasn't no party," Williams said. "I realized I'd made a bad mistake."
For at least a week, authorities say, the 20-year-old Black woman was kept captive in a shed, tortured, beaten, forced to eat rat, dog and human feces, and raped by six White men and women who taunted her with racial slurs.
"They just kept saying 'This is what we do to niggers down here,'" Williams told The Associated Press in one of her most extensive interviews since the shocking case made national headlines last month.
Seated in a rocking chair in her mother's living room, about 50 miles from that shed, the slight woman with cocoa-colored skin says she was hopelessly outnumbered by people who just wanted to hurt a black person.
"I just hope they fry for what they did to me. That's really all I got to say," she said. "I hope they fry."
A coalition of civil rights organizations and Black leaders are now uniting behind the Williams family, organizing a hate-crime awareness march for Nov. 3 in Charleston in hopes of pressuring prosecutors to act.
Statements from Frankie Brewster and her son Bobby Brewster allege that Williams was forced to perform oral sex on Frankie Brewster under threat of death, that she was forced to perform oral sex on Danny Combs at knifepoint, that she was made to lick their toes, raped and humiliated.
"They said I was never going to see my family again," Megan Williams said.—The Associated Press
Identity Thieves Target African Americans and Latinos
New study reveals African Americans and Latinos take the
least steps to protect their identity and suffer the most
when thieves steal their identity.
According to a study by National Mutual Insurance Company,
identity thief syndicates have discovered this fact. Now more
organized identity thief cartels are keying in on the accounts of
African-Americans and Latinos.
The Number One Consumer Danger ... And Growing!
For the 5th year in a row Identity Theft is the number one
consumer threat. With the increase use of credit cards
and online shopping this trend will continue to grow as
people continue to neglect to protect themselves.
Now another more effective source for identity thieves to
tap is Organizational Identity theft. Identity thieves are
breaking into the networks of organizations to steal
personal information on their customers. Yes, more identity
thieves target organizations where you keep your savings,
insurance and other personal information.– www.blackhomeownernews.com
FBI Threatened Innocent Prisoner’s Family With Torture
Newly-disclosed court documents reveal an innocent Egyptian national falsely confessed to a crime after FBI agents threatened to torture his family. Abdallah Higazy was jailed for a month as a suspected accomplice to the 9/11 attacks. FBI agents wanted him to admit to having a special pilot’s radio near the World Trade Center on 9/11. An interrogator told him his family would face “torture” and “hell” if he didn’t confess. Higazy later said: “I knew I couldn’t prove my innocence, and I knew my family was in danger…. If I say this device is mine, I’m screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger.” The details were included in an Appeals Court ruling reinstating Higazy’s civil case against the FBI over his mistreatment. But within minutes of that ruling, the court withdrew its opinion and removed Higazy’s account of his ordeal. Higazy’s interrogator, Michael Templeton, has not contested that the confession was coerced.—www.DemocracyNow.org
BP Ordered to Pay $373M Penalty
The oil giant BP has been ordered to pay a three-hundred seventy-three million dollar fine to settle three separate charges. Fifteen people were killed and hundreds were injured in a massive explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery in 2005.
Acting Attorney General Peter Keisler: “Under the agreement the company will plead guilty to a one count information charging it with felony violation of the Clean Air Act. BP will pay a fine of 50 million dollars and will serve a three year period of probation. This is the largest fine ever assessed to a single entity under the Clean Air act and this is the first criminal prosecution under the section of the Act specifically created to prevent accidental releases that result in death or injury."
BP will also pay twenty-million dollars for a pipeline spill at an Alaska oilfield last year. And a record three-hundred three million to settle market price-fixing charges from 2004.—www.DemocracyNow.org
Bush Pledges to Maintain Cuba Embargo
President Bush has vowed to maintain the U.S. embargo on Cuba through the end of his presidency. In a speech at the State Department Wednesday, Bush called Cuba a ‘tropical gulag’ that would be isolated until it removes its government.
President Bush: "America will have no part in giving oxygen to a criminal regime victimizing its own people. We will not support the old way with new faces, the old system held together by new chains. The operative word in our future dealings with Cuba is not ‘stability.’ The operative word is ‘freedom.’"
Bush went on to announce a so-called “freedom fund” that would provide aid to Cuba if it changed leadership. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque called Bush’s speech an “invocation to violence.”
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque: "Cuba understands these words as an irresponsible act, which gives an idea of the level of frustration, of desperation and of personal hatred of President Bush against Cuba. An invocation to violence, a call to the use of violence to defeat the Cuban Revolution."
Senate Rejects Citizenship for Undocumented Children
On Capitol Hill, the Senate has rejected a measure that would have granted permanent citizenship to undocumented workers’ children provided they complete two years of college, trade school or military service. The measure was defeated by a vote of fifty-two to forty-four. Democratic Senators Diane Feinstein and Ben Nelson voted with Republicans.—www.DemocracyNow.org
Activists Target Bank of America’s Coal Industry Ties
In North Carolina, environmental activists have draped a fifty-foot banner denouncing Bank of America’s ties to the coal industry right across from its downtown Charlotte headquarters. The banner reads: “Bank of America: Funding Coal, Killing Communities.” The Rainforest Action Network is calling on Bank of America to stop funding construction of new coal-fueled power plants and destructive mountaintop coal extraction.—www.DemocracyNow.org
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