Obituary: gay man’s death no longer debated to be hate crime

On Oct. 8 of last year, four men lured 29-year-old Michael J. Sandy, an interior designer from Williamsburg, N.Y., to meet with them at the parking lot of Plum Beach with the intentions of robbing him. Their strategy was simple: the foursome believed since Sandy was gay, he wouldn’t resist to robbery. Nor would he likely report the crime. On the day of the meeting, things did not go according to plan. Rather, they turned for the worst.

When he arrived he was set upon by the others. Sandy bolted for the nearby Belt Parkway with his attackers in close pursuit.

They caught up with him in one lane of the highway and as Sandy broke free he was struck by a car, sustaining massive head injuries.

The 28 year old died a week later after his family instructed doctors to take him off a life-support machine. (link)

District Attorney Charles Hynes claimed this was a hate crime. He said, “He was murdered because he was gay.”

In a twist, one of the perpetrators, 21-year-old Anthony Fortunato, claimed that he himself was not straight. He said, “I could be homosexual or bisexual. … I was leading two complete double lives.” Fortunato even had three men testify to his newly claimed sexual orientation.

All three said they met Fortunato through internet chat rooms. Two of them said that when Fortunato arrived at their homes he was wearing a bra and women’s panties.

“To my shock he was wearing ladies’ undergarments, he had a bra, if I remember correctly, and a G-string,” one of the men, Henry Rudolph testified.

Fortunato has been convicted of manslaughter in the second degree as a hate crime as well as petty larceny. The three others were similarly convicted.

Obituary: poverty stricken 11-year-old Filipina girl hangs herself

“We weren’t able to go to church because we didn’t have any money for transport and my father had a fever so my mother and I had to wash clothes for money.” (link)

That excerpt was from an entry in 11-year-old Mariannet Amper’s diary. She committed suicide by hanging herself with a nylon cord Nov. 2, likely because of her family’s unfortunate state in poverty.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said that the media has blown out of proportion an “isolated case.” A comment that enraged many to protest on the streets. Although he later added, “we take responsibility for everything because we are leaders of government. We need to ensure that services are there.”

A representative of an NGO, Global Call to Action against Poverty, said, “One death is too much.”

“We were shocked and saddened by the news of the suicide of 11 year-old girl, and for a few hours our world stopped. To hear the government reducing her death to an isolated case is outrageous.”

 

 

Crowds of sympathizers filed into the Santa Cruz chapel, where the Mass for the 12-year-old girl was held, before proceeding in a long procession to the unkempt cemetery, which looked as miserable as the girl’s destitute life.

Stepping on tombs, some of the girl’s classmates wailed as they took a last look at their classmate, whom they described as “jolly,” now lying in a white wooden coffin under a lone mango tree amidst a jungle of poorly kept tombs. (link)

All classmates and community members that attended the funeral agree that Mariannet made a poor choice. They too are affected by the poverty crisis, but wouldn’t resort to such drastic measure. Her classmate, Mary Riza Jumawan, 12, said that her family’s condition is similar, but options still remain.

“We’re also poor but I will not hang myself because I want to study and become a teacher. If my parents can’t afford to send me to school, then I’ll finish my studies as a working student like (my) elder sisters”

24-year-old mother of three, Anabel Carbonella, a neighbor, maintains the community’s consensus that suicide was an easy way out. She said, “Even if we are poor, we should not stop striving because there is hope if we try hard.”

Mariannet Amper is survived by a younger brother, her mother and father.

Muslim homosexuals proud, not loud

Somewhat informative and somewhat humorous (because how absurd the reality revealed is) article in the Times today.

SAN FRANCISCO — About 15 people marched alongside the Muslim float in this city’s notoriously fleshy Gay Pride Parade earlier this year, with various men carrying the flags of Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey and even Iran’s old imperial banner.

While other floats featured men dancing in leather Speedos or women with scant duct tape over their nipples, many Muslims were disguised behind big sunglasses, fezzes or kaffiyehs wrapped around their heads. (link)

This, because the mentality of rejecting homosexuality wholeheartedly remains strong even in the American Muslim community. Revealing this unorthodox sexual orientation would only shun these individuals from their community.

Imam Daayiee Abdullah, 53, a black convert to Islam, was expelled from a Saudi-financed seminary in Virginia after the school found out he is gay. His effort to organize a gay masjid, or mosque, in Washington failed largely out of fear, he said. “(They said) that they would blow up a masjid if it was a gay masjid.”

The article mostly considers the interpretation classically derived on the topic from the Koran. The end result almost always being at it’s best to advocate resisting the urge, and at it’s worse, killing the freak. While reading, a strange sentence popped out to me.

The classical attitude toward lesbians is even murkier, said Scott Kugle, an American convert and university professor who specializes in the topic, because sex was defined as penetration.

Now I certainly realize that I am outside looking into a foreign culture/religion. So I’ll refrain from too much subjective comments. But you can’t stop me from practicing my right as a blogger to freely cherry pick quotes to prove my point!

The ultra-conservative imam, Hassan al-Jalal, tells the story of how God hates the gays and wants them dead, referring to the Islamic view of Lot.

All sects mandate capital punishment, he argued, although others differ. “Sunni, Shiite, they all agree that they have to be killed. But who does it? Not me or you, only by law.”

The article continues to specifically discuss how each interviewed gay American-Muslim interpret for their own peace of mind the writing of Koran and its history, their past experience (negative and positive), and life today — generally, not easy.

I would like to suggest both parties read this fine book I had the pleasure to review once. Won’t answer questions. But certainly revealing.

Alleged attack debated to be a hate crime

(Megan) Williams (second from right) was found by police at a home in Logan County in early September. She says she was held against her will, sexually assaulted, stabbed and even threatened with death. All six people charged in connection with the incident are white and face charges of kidnapping and sexual assault. (link)

But the six alleged attackers aren’t being charged for hate crime, despite the pleas of the 400 who marched to Charleston, W.Va. on Saturday. Williams’ lawyer, Brian Williams, said it’d be difficult to prove this to be a hate crime because she had a “social relationship” with one of the attackers before the alleged incident.

 

“Hate crimes are out of control in America,” Malik Shabazz, pictured above, a legal adviser to Williams and her family and a founder of Black Lawyers for Justice, told the group at a rally before the march. “Nooses are being hung and our women are being raped by white mobs. What happened to Megan Williams was a hate crime and we want this prosecuted as a hate crime.” (link)

A hate crime carries an additional sentence of ten years. Although if convicted for kidnapping, the alleged attackers could face a life sentence.

Zayid Muhammad, the national minister of culture for the New Black Panther Party, came to the rally from Newark, N.J.

“As a father of a daughter and a child of African ancestry, the idea that I can sit by idly, (in) the face of one of the most violent and obscene acts committed against a black woman in my life, was too appalling,” Muhammad said. “I had to come.”

A one on one interview with Megan Williams describing the assault in detail is available here.

Real life Romeo and Juliet tragedy [UPDATE 3]

He a young, striving Muslim, she a fabulously wealthy Hindu, both daring to marry despite her family’s archresistance and, in the end, paying a terrible price. (link)

Rizwanur Rahman and Priyanka Todi seem like the protagonists of that famous Shakespeare play, don’t they? Unfortunately, it’s a similar tragedy as well.

On a Friday in September, barely a month into their marriage, the body of Mr. Rahman, 29, turned up on the railroad tracks, his head mangled almost beyond recognition.

Whether murder or suicide, that is up for debate. But what’s more controversial are the events that lead up to the death.

First, her father came to urge her to leave. Then the police summoned the couple to the headquarters of the “anti-rowdy” division. On one occasion, Rukbanur Rahman recalled, police officers threatened to chain-gang the entire Rahman family to the police station if the couple refused to come with them for questioning.

In Mr. Rahman’s family home, police interrogated the couple no fewer than three times, apparently at the request of Ms. Todi’s family. The police chief at the time, Prasun Mukherjee, justified his officers’ intervention by saying, at a news conference, that he found resistance to the marriage by the bride’s family “natural.”

The likely bribed police department is what’s coming under fire by both the press, and the city’s community — which considers itself one of the most historically tolerant of religions in India. Although, even community leaders agree that is changing.

“Money didn’t make a difference in this city,” said Bonani Kakkar, founder of a citizens’ group that calls itself Public, an acronym for People United for Better Living in Calcutta “Today it does.”

The police chief expectedly was transferred. But the community remains in mourning and demands justice to be served.

For three weeks, students, families and ordinary people of all faiths flocked there every evening, signing giant banners and lighting up a narrow sidewalk with hundreds of small white candles. “Candles of conscience,” read a banner. “Why is Todi so cozy?” asked another, referring to the bride’s father, Ashok Todi, a prominent businessman and a men’s underwear baron.

[UPDATE] The father is the prime suspect and is being interrogated. He’s to take a lie detector test soon. (link)

[UPDATE 2]

Two men, real estate developer, Hasan and his associate Majid, who allegedly had threatened Rizwanur Rehman at the behest of Ashok Todi, have come out in the open and have confessed that they had pressurised the couple for a divorce.

It’s learnt that both the men were roped in by the Todi’s to negotiate with Rehman’s family and were sent by the Todi’s to negotiate a settlement at the behest of their solicitors. Majid confessed that he was asked to convince the Rehman family to agree to a divorce so that Priyanka could go back to her family. (link)

[UPDATE 3] Rizwanur’s last words.

“My father-in-law spoke to me. He told me that I would have to convert to Hinduism to which I agreed.

“I engaged myself in making new creatives for my father-in-law’s company, hoping that I would show it to him and things would take a positive shape.”(link)

The DREAM Act rejected

Today the DREAM Act was officially rejected again — it felt short 8 additional votes needed to arrive at the senate floor. If passed, this bill would allow those between the age of 12 and 30, who immigrated with their parents illegally while under the age of 15, the opportunity to obtain permanent status.

During the six years of conditional status, the eligible immigrant would be required to either

(1) graduate from a two-year community college,

(2)complete at least two years towards a 4-year degree, or

(3) serve two years in the U.S. military.

After the six year period, an immigrant who meets at least one of these three conditions would be eligible to apply for legal permanent resident (green card) status. (link)

A cruel outcome, indeed. It’s as if no one is willing to help the most vulnerable. How much say did these children have when they emigrated their country of origin? Now they are expected to leave the land where they grew up and return somewhere they have no recollection of?

“Some of their stories are heartbreaking. Many know no other country, know no other language, and now they are being told to leave by our government.” – Lead sponsor Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill). (link)

‘It’s worse than crack’

Well no scientist has just flat out said cigarettes are worse than crack. But they do agree,

tobacco is highly addictive. It is considered mood and behavior altering. Tobacco is believed to have an addictive potential comparable to alcohol, cocaine, and morphine.

Now that certainly should qualify as reason enough to not go near the cause for lung cancer. Or quit, if currently smoking. So who could still be blazing?

Even as antismoking campaigns have sharply reduced tobacco use in society at large, smoking has remained far more common among the poor of all races. (link)

In fact,

Officials (in Baltimore) said they were surprised when a recent study suggested that more than half of poor, black young adults smoke cigarettes — almost always menthol, almost always Newports.

Obituary: Felix Najera dies at 49

At about midnight Friday, Felix Najera was sleeping on a cardboard box in front of the Iglesia Cristiana Betania Church on East 103rd Street, when one teen lit his pants on fire with a cigarette lighter, police said. Najera jumped up, “causing him to be engulfed in flames,” said Sgt. Carlos Nieves, a New York Police Department spokesman

Najera, 48, a Mexican immigrant, suffered burns over at least 40 percent and possibly as much as 75 percent of his body, including his face, chest, arms and abdomen. He was in critical condition Friday night at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, police said. (link)

A drunken homeless’ life in the New York city streets isn’t worth much to many. It’s reality. Even less if he is an Mexican immigrant. Surprisingly, upon hearing of the horrible plight of Felix Najera many residents collectively began voicing their rage.

“Whoever did this has no love for humanity,” Rev. Ariel Soto of Iglesia Cristiana Betania Church on East 103rd Street said. “The person who did this is psychologically disturbed. There is absolutely no meaning to this.”

A veteran NYPD detective who was passing out fliers with Najera’s photograph and an offer of a $2,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, shook his head and said, “I can’t remember a case like this happening here, and I’ve been here since 1994.”

Article Analysis: Savage Rapes Stoke Trauma of Congo War

The people of Congo have never really witnessed peace in their nation. Victimized by the colonists, rebel militias, and self serving leaders, the Congolese accept their life is destined for endless sufferings.

Too consumed with the American and Pakistani elections, globalization, and Iraq War news that I had forgotten there are mass genocides going on in the African continent.

So when I read today’s article on the Times, “Savage Rapes Stoke Trauma of Congo War,” I was broken down to tears.

Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.

There certainly are theories as to who, and what, could be responsible for one of the most heinous crime on this planet. But fingers are being pointed at all directions. Certainly, the Hutu Militia and it’s alumnus, the Rastas.