Naomi Campbell has a well-documented history of anger issues, but her most recent rage, over allegations that she was the recipient of a blood diamond, has been captured on film by ABC. The supermodel, who was reportedly given a large, uncut diamond by former African despot Charles Taylor, lashed out at a cameraman when her interviewer began a line of questioning regarding the gift.
Campbell, who initially told the reporter, "I didn't receive a diamond and I'm not going to speak about that," became enraged when she was further questioned on the subject. She proceeded to get out of her chair and exit the interview, knocking the camera out of a producer's hand on her way.
Campbell, who allegedly has crucial information linking the former Liberian president to war crimes committed in Sierra Leone, has refused interview requests from the UN's Special Court regarding the matter.
The supermodel's short fuse has landed her in hot water in the past. Both a former assistant and housekeeper alleged that Campbell physically attacked them, and she was involved in a 2008 scuffle with police at London's Heathrow Airport.
AP - Saturday, April 03, 2010 4:26:03 PM By ANGELA DELLI SANTI and BETH DEFALCO
Two men and three teenage boys were charged Saturday with gang-raping a 7-year-old girl who was sold by her 15-year-old stepsister during a party at a crime-ridden apartment building in the state's capital, police said.
Details of the arrests were announced at a Saturday evening news conference outside police headquarters. Police Director Irving Bradley said detectives had been working around the clock since the crime was reported March 28.
"We did get a lot of cooperation from the community, which helped break this case," Bradley said.
Those arrested included Gregory Joseph Leary, 20, in custody since Friday, when he was charged with having sex with the 15-year-old. The other four are Timear Lewis, 19, and boys ages 13, 14 and 17. Each was charged with aggravated sexual assault and child endangerment.
Prosecutors likely would seek to try all of them as adults, Mercer County prosecutor Joseph Bocchini said.
The suspects, who were to be assigned public defenders, were being held Saturday night and couldn't be contacted for comment. There was no telephone listing for Lewis; a telephone for a G. Leary had been disconnected.
The case shocked residents of the gritty Rowan Towers apartment building, where three of those arrested live, police Capt. Joseph Juniak said.
Building management has stepped up its security presence there and promised additional safety measures. Residents have expressed skepticism that the apartments would become safer.
Police say the 15-year-old girl went to a party with some men at Rowan Towers on March 28 and the younger girl tagged along because she was worried about her stepsister's safety. They say the 15-year-old sold sex to men and boys there, then took money to let them touch the younger girl. They say the touching turned to forcible sex as at least seven men raped the 7-year-old.
Additional arrests are expected, police said.
Before Saturday's arrest announcement, the 15-year-old had been charged with promoting prostitution, aggravated sexual assault and other crimes. Police have not released her name, and she remained in juvenile detention Saturday night.
Mayor Doug Palmer, who met with the 7-year-old girl and her family in his office on Thursday, described their ordeal as a "torment."
"They're in a safe place right now," he said. "I would ask that the community embrace this family -- they are going through a lot."
Palmer gave the girl a stuffed bunny rabbit for Easter. He said the family is getting counseling and indicated it may be permanently relocated away from the city.
AP - Friday, April 02, 2010 5:06:10 PM By BERT WILKINSON
A 15-year-old girl has died after neighbors and a local pastor tried to treat her convulsions with an exorcism at a church, and Guyanese police said Friday they are investigating.
Sangeeta Persaud began to convulse Sunday as she drank tea for breakfast at her grandmother's home in Canal Number Two, a farming village west of the capital, Georgetown, the grandmother told The Associated Press.
Chaitranie Ramotar said she became worried and called the girl's mother, who brought the pastor to the house.
"I experienced the same thing at age 12," Nankumarie Jaikissoon, the teen's mother, told the AP. "That is why I did not rush her to the hospital. My heart did not tell me to rush her to the hospital."
The pastor, Ewart Cummings, said he decided to take the girl to his small, concrete church, where he and several elders spent five hours praying for her as they pressed on her stomach and head. They also made her drink an anointing oil, he told the AP.
At times, the teen would bark and make other strange noises, Cummings said.
"I did nothing wrong," he said. "I just responded as pastor of the church. ... Ungodly people would not understand certain things like driving out spirits."
Cummings said he drove the girl to the hospital around 5 p.m. because she had calmed down but was weak. She died at 10 p.m.
Police Commander Colin West said results from a preliminary autopsy were inconclusive but an investigation continues. No one has been charged.
On Thursday, Cummings presided at the girl's funeral as the child's mother, father and other relatives shouted accusations at one another and at the pastor. Police were summoned to the funeral and ordered the pastor to issue a quick prayer to end the service.
Cummings said he had previously prayed for the girl's mother and grandmother because they complained that evil spirits disrupted their sleep and tried to injure them.
Persaud, who turned 15 in mid-March, was the only girl among four siblings. She was temporarily sharing a bed with her grandmother in a wood shack as her mother waited for plumbing and electricity to be installed at their house.
Jaikissoon said her daughter had suffered from a bad cold for several years and was recently tested for tuberculosis. The teen was supposed to go back to the hospital April 19 for results from blood tests and X-rays taken of her chest.
A curious order emanating from a Sharia judge in KadunaState is seeking to gag users in a forum launched recently on an amputation case on Facebook and Twitter.
Justice Lawal Muhammed of Magajin Gari Sharia Court in Kaduna has ordered social networking sites - Facebook and Twitter - to stop discussions on the amputation of Buba Bello Jangebe until the determination of the suit instituted by the Association of Muslim Brotherhood of Nigeria. The restraining order is the first of its kind in Nigeria where a court seeks to interfere in the freedom of interaction and activities of people online. It is not clear how the restraining order would be enforced. But it has been delivered to the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) that opened the discussion on Sharia law and Jangebe on Facebook and Twitter recently. Court documents obtained by THISDAY in Kaduna confirmed the ruling of Justice Muhammed. “An order is hereby given restraining the respondents (CRC) either by themselves or their agents from opening a chat forum on Facebook, Twitter, or any blog for the purpose of the debate on the amputation of Malam Buba Bello Jangebe,” the document read. Jangebe was the first person to have his right wrist amputated on the orders of a Sharia court in ZamfaraState, a year after 12 Northern states adopted the strict Islamic penal code during the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration. In an interview with THISDAY, President of the CRC Shehu Sani said the group would challenge the order at a higher court. He said the order tramples on his right to free speech and freedom of association.
Sani added that the chat forum was opened about 10 days ago to provide an avenue for Nigerians to discuss Sharia law as a whole and the amputation of Jangebe in particular.
“We opened the blog on Facebook and Twitter chats 10 days ago to serve as a platform for which Nigerians could air their opinions on Sharia law as a whole and the justification or otherwise of the amputation of the hand of Malam Buba Bello Jangebe,” Sani said. This is not the first time Sani is having an encounter with Sharia courts in the North. In 2008, one of the courts banned his satirical play “Phantom Crescent” after it ruled that the content violates Sharia law. The ban was later lifted on appeal. Kaduna is one of 12 states to introduce the stricter version of Sharia law in the North after Zamfara signed it into law in 1999.
A Nigerian deportee died at Zurich airport after collapsing in handcuffs as he was being placed onto a special flight for expelled criminals or failed asylum seekers, the Swiss police said on Thursday.
Zurich police said in a statement that the unnamed man had been arrested for drug dealing and was meant to have been sent back to Nigeria on the flight with 15 other people, Agence France Presse reports.
"The 29-year-old, whose asylum application was not accepted by the Federal Migration Office, had refused food for several days, and was trying to resist arrest. He could only be handcuffed with use of force.
"Shortly after, he suddenly showed health problems."
The police added that the accompanying officials had unlocked his handcuffs and tried to resuscitate him.
However, the man died shortly after.
Local police assured that investigations were ongoing into the cause and circumstances of his death.
The FMO said in a statement that it "deplored this tragic incident" and that it was suspending special flights while a probe was taking place.
On the night of January 11, Jordan Miles, an 18-year-old violinist and honor student at Pittsburgh’s prestigious Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) high school, was allegedly beaten by three undercover Pittsburgh Police officers. Miles was reportedly en route to his grandmother’s house at the time, though he never reached his destination.
According to the police criminal complaint, three officers on undercover patrol in Homewood — Richard Ewing, Michael Saldutte and David Sisak — spied Mr. Miles at 11 p.m. Jan. 11 by a house on Tioga Street. Seeing a heavy object in his coat, they identified themselves as police and ordered him to stop.
Mr. Miles ran and the officers shot him with a Taser and struck him several times during a struggle. The complaint says with “Miles’s having assaulted two police officers, believing that he was armed, unable to handcuff him, and Miles not following any commands, [Officers Saldutte and Ewing] began to deliver knee strikes to both sides of Miles’s body in an attempt to get his hands behind his back … At this point Ofc. Sisak delivered 2-3 closed fist strikes to Miles’ head/face with still no effect.”
The complaint said the heavy object in his coat turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew. (via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Jordan Miles said the police pfficers beat him and tore off dreadlock. The three white officers who arrested him have been reassigned.
“I feel that my son was racially profiled,” Terez Miles said. “It’s a rough neighborhood; it was after dark. … They assumed he was up to no good because he’s black. My son, he knows nothing about the streets at all. He’s had a very sheltered life, he’s very quiet, he doesn’t know police officers sit in cars and stalk people like that.”
Miles’ family describes him as a studious teenager who plays the viola for a jazz band and the orchestra at Pittsburgh’s prestigious Creative and Performing Arts High School.
Sources and Photo Credits: trueslant.com, newsone.com
A Lagos State High Court in Igbosere yesterday ordered Rear Admiral Harry Arogundade, the Nigerian Navy and four naval ratings to pay Miss Uzoma Okere and her friend, Mr. Abdullahi Abdulazeez, N100 million as damages for assaulting them.
In a judgment that lasted one and a half hours, presiding judge, Justice Opeyemi Oke, vehemently rebuked the officers, describing them as people who are not fit for a decent society.
He described their behaviour as “barbaric” and unlawful and a violation of the plaintiffs’ fundamental human rights.
The judge ordered the officers and the Navy to offer unreserved “apology” to the victims within one month of the judgment in four national newspapers, namely: THISDAY, The Guardian, The Nation and The Punch. She also extended the apology order to some electronic media namely: NTA, AIT, Raypower and Cool FM stations.
“Miss Okere was brutalized, beaten, pushed, pulled and dragged on the road and her blouse pulled off her by one of the naval ratings thereby exposing her nakedness from waist up, leaving her with only the brassiere. This was done to a young lady, a citizen of this country,” lamented the judge.
She said the ratings ought to undergo psychiatric test to determine their sanity, adding that they apparently forgot they were not in a high sea fighting a war but in an enlightened society.
“The averments in their counter-affidavits were cooked-up lies to the extent that they were overcooked and got burnt,” the judge said.
The court resolved the three issues for determination in favour of the applicants, namely: whether they established the fact that their fundamental human rights were infringed; whether the respondents can be held liable, and whether the applicants are entitled to the reliefs sought.
She said after going through the documentary evidence before her, it was a clear case of res inter locutor (facts speak for themselves), adding that no amount of money can adequately compensate the violation of a persons’ human dignity.
Justice Oke added: “Miss Okere was violated by the ratings in glaring eyes of the public with her upper anatomy exposed to all sorts of eyes. Her private property became the object of a cinema for those who witnessed the unfortunate and disgraceful incident in a country like ours. This was man’s inhumanity to man.”
According to her, Okere’s partial nakedness likely made “imaginations to run riot” as “most people who witnessed the incident were able to describe the size of her bra”.
She went on: “These ratings can only be described as barbarians in uniforms as they have shown by this incident that they have no respect for womanhood – dragging a woman on the road and partially getting her naked. They have no fear of God at all.
“It is highly shameful and unimaginable that such could happen in this 21st Century in a civilized society and democratic one. It should therefore be condemned in very strong language.
“The naval ratings have disgraced the uniform they wear as officers of the Nigerian Navy. They are therefore a disgrace to the whole nation. The rebranding gospel should therefore be commenced with this group of officers.”
Arogundade, the judge held, was liable and could not claim ignorance of what his men were doing.
Okere and her friend, Abdulazeez, were beaten and humiliated by the naval ratings in late 2008 for allegedly denying them right of passage on the road.
They went to court to seek for an order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondents and their agents from horse-whipping motorists and putting them in apprehension through reckless driving in siren-blaring convoy. They asked the court to award them N100 million as damages for the assault among other reliefs that they sought.
Arogundade and the Nigerian Navy had attempted to frustrate the matter when they came up with an application seeking stay of proceedings. But Justice Oke dismissed the application on grounds that it was frivolous, unwarranted and a time wasting exercise.
They had also challenged the ruling of the court, which dismissed their application seeking leave of the court to admit oral evidence in a suit which the learned judge dismissed on grounds that there were documentary evidence before the court that could be used to adjudicate on the matter, saying that there was no need for oral evidence.
Dissatisfied, the respondents urged the court to stay further proceedings in the matter pending the final determination of an appeal filed at the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division.
However, the court in its ruling held that granting of an application for stay of proceedings is at the discretion of the court and that the court must take into consideration the rights of parties involved before arriving at a just conclusion.
Source: Thisday
The video of the brutalization of Ms. Uzoma Okere can be viewed below.
AGAINST widespread reports of child abuse and stigmatisation in the state, the decision of the Akwa Ibom state Government to enact a law on Child Rights should be commended. For too long, religious profiteers and self-acclaimed exorcists have capitalised on the pervasive poverty in the land to stigmatise children as witches or wizards; and then go on to abuse them under the pretext of exorcising demons.
We urge the Akwa Ibom state Government to implement the new law strictly, fish out offenders and sanction them as appropriate. However, although the state has taken the initiative in enacting the Child Rights law, the social vice of child abuse is widespread. Other states which in the last eight years have refused to pass the Child Rights Law, on the unjustifiable ground that it violates cultural and religious beliefs, should emulate the Akwa Ibom example and do so.
Nigeria is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Child Rights, 1989 which at least 24 states of the federation are required to endorse through their domestic laws. So far, about 18 states have embraced the convention. In view of the Akwa Ibom experience, and the likelihood of more bizarre situations in other parts of the country, there is need for urgent proactive measures against child abuse at national and state levels. But more important is the need to apprehend and sanction violators of the law.
Both the Akwa Ibom House of Assembly and Governor Godswill Akpabio of the State resorted to the law in apparent response to the recent broadcast on UK Channel 4 of a documentary titled 'Saving Africa's Witch Children.' In the documentary, which gave a detailed account of sheer cruelty towards children, one Bishop Sunday Ulup-Aya claimed to have "killed" 110 child witches. Upon his arrest by the Police, following sustained public outrage, he modified this to mean that he did not kill the children physically, but the demonic spirit in them.
Two Non-Governmental Organisations, Stepping Stones Nigeria (SSN) and the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) have applauded the Akwa Ibom state Government's swift response to the documentary and the concern that it generated. Stigmatising children and branding them 'witches' and 'wizards' is certainly an unacceptable practice in this day and age. Its representation by the documentary casts a big slur on Nigeria's image abroad. Besides the fact that witchcraft cannot be proven scientifically, stigmatizing anyone as a witch and discriminating against such persons is an outright abuse of human rights.
It is lamentable that centuries after the legendary Mary Slessor rescued twins in the Eastern part of the country from being labelled as 'evil' and disposable, a similar belief and practice still exists across the country. We have little doubt that the Akwa Ibom episode is being regularly replicated in other parts of the country. Sometime ago, a television documentary showed how some children in Lagos had their hands burnt on account that they allegedly harboured evil spirits.
It is equally worrisome that some churches, which are supposed to preach the messages of peace, love and forgiveness are in the forefront of the rituals of exorcism and hate. We are confounded because the Scriptures do not recommend the methods of physical and mental torture adopted by these churches for expelling evil spirits. Socially too, such practices negate the standards of counselling and rehabilitation of persons that may have been identified as deviant.
In any event, since the law does not recognise witchcraft, anyone purporting to abuse a child, or inflict bodily harm for that reason, should be made to face the music. In the absence of a standard means of verifying a claim of witchcraft, it will be dangerous to tolerate exorcism anchored on deliberate bodily harm and death. An innocent person could well become a victim of such heinous acts as has been the case in Akwa Ibom state.
Under the Child Rights law, passed by the Akwa Ibom state House of Assembly and signed by Governor Akpabio, anyone involved in any form of torture, trial by ordeal or inhuman treatment of a child, purportedly to cure, purge or exorcise such a child of witchcraft would be liable to 10 years imprisonment without an option of fine. To ensure speedy trial of offenders under the law, the Governor further announced the establishment of a special family court to determine matters related to children. These measures are welcome.
As future leaders, children must be protected from acts capable of eroding their confidence and self-esteem. It is noteworthy that the Akwa Ibom Child Rights law makes it mandatory for parents and guardians to send children to school under the government's free and compulsory education scheme. No effort should be spared to ensure conformity with the law.
Beyond this, there is need for public enlightenment. We share the concern of the SSN programme Director, Gary Foxcroff that that the vast majority of Akwa Ibomites including commissioners, legislators, policy makers, police and social welfare teams, and even ordinary persons believe that children can be witches. Some people even tend to associate ailments such as epilepsy with witchcraft. The abuse of child rights is likely to continue for as long as this superstition endures. There is need for a government-private sector partnership, to launch a widespread and relentless campaign to educate
