“In August 2011 we documented at least 243 short-term arrests (some for more than a week) and nine acts of censure organized by the numerous and ubiquitous secret political police,” the commission said in a document released to the foreign press in Havana.

The outlawed but tolerated rights panel said that in the first eight months of this year at least 2,221 arrests were made for political reasons, 1,091 more than in the same period in 2010.

It said that the victims of last month’s repression were mainly women engaged in “non-violent activities,” chiefly in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.

The commission added that “it has no doubt that the order for that brutal repression was decreed or approved by the highest ranks of the neo-Stalinist regime that has ruled Cuba for more than half a century.”

The Catholic Church in Cuba said Monday that the government of President Raul Castro told prelates that actions targeting peaceful protesters were not authorized by national officials.

Human rights groups and international organizations believe that these articles subordinate the exercise of freedom of expression to the state. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights assess that: “It is evident that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression under this article of the Constitution is governed by two fundamental determinants: on the one hand, the preservation and strengthening of the communist State; on the other, the need to muzzle any criticism of the group in power.” Human rights group Amnesty International assert that the universal state ownership of the media means that freedom of expression is restricted. Thus the exercise of the right to freedom of expression is restricted by the lack of means of mass communication falling outside state control. Human Rights Watch states: “Refusing to recognize human rights monitoring as a legitimate activity, the government denies legal status to local human rights groups. Individuals who belong to these groups face systematic harassment, with the government putting up obstacles to impede them from documenting human rights conditions. In addition, international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are barred from sending fact-finding missions to Cuba. It remains one of the few countries in the world to deny the International Committee of the Red Cross access to its prisons.”

A Reporters Without Borders report finds that Internet use is very restricted and under tight surveillance. Access is only possible with government permission and equipment is rationed. E-mail is monitored.

The penalty for adultery under Article 83 of the penal code, called the Law of Hodoud is flogging (100 lashes of the whip) for unmarried male and female offenders. Married offenders may be punished by stoning regardless of their gender, but the method laid down for a man involves his burial up to his waist, and for a woman up to her neck (article 102). The law provides that if a person who is to be stoned manages to escape, he or she will be allowed to go free. Since it is easier for a man to escape, this discrimination literally becomes a matter of life and death.

Interestingly, Article 6 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified, states: “Sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime.” Offenses for which the Law of Hodoud provides the death penalty do not involve murder or serious bodily harm, constituting the “most serious crimes”.

Article 104 of the Law of Hodoud provides that the stones should not be so large that a person dies after being hit with two of them, nor so small as to be defined as pebbles, but must cause severe injury. This makes it clear that the purpose of stoning is to inflict grievous pain on the victim, in a process leading to his or her slow death.

The Iranian woman facing death by stoning has expressed surprise over reports that she was lashed after a British newspaper published a picture showing her without a headscarf, a judiciary official who says he met her told Fars news agency on Wednesday.

“She was unaware and surprised by reports of (receiving) lashes after a British newspaper printed a picture which was not hers and had mistakenly mentioned her name under it,” Kazemzadeh said.

Mohammadi-Ashtiani’s son, Sajjad, told a Paris news conference by telephone on Monday that he “heard” his 43-year-old mother received 99 lashes in prison after The Times of London published on August 28 a picture claiming to be of Mohammadi-Ashtiani and showing her hair unveiled.

By law, women in the Islamic republic must be covered from head to foot, with their hair completely veiled.

Kazemzadeh said Mohammadi-Ashtiani’s death sentence had been “suspended on the orders of the head of the judiciary and will not be applied for the moment”, confirming what Iranian officials have been saying since July.

On Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that her stoning sentence remained stayed as a final verdict in her case was still pending.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said in a statement in London that suspending the sentence was not enough.
“The whole world is aware of my situation because of Mostafaie’s rogue action. I am ready to be present in front of the media and on television any time to defend myself,” Kazemzadeh quoted Mohammadi-Ashtiani as telling him, adding that she had filed a complaint against the lawyer with the judiciary.

Kazemzadeh said the condemned woman, a mother of two, told him that she continued to have weekly meetings with her family and children, Farideh and Sajjad.

Jan Moir defended her opinion piece, published in the British edition of today’s newspaper, claiming she was the victim of “a heavily orchestrated internet campaign” after several companies pulled advertising from the website page featuring the article.

“I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones,” she said in the statement.

The British Press Complaints Commission received more than 1,000 complaints from members of the public throughout the course of the day, leading the Commission’s website to crash for several hours.

“Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention,” she said.

Defending the content of her article, she said: “it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death – out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that sThe article in question initially had the headline “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death” but this was later changed on the paper’s online edition to: “A strange, lonely and troubling death…”

In it she questioned the nature of his death: “Even before the post-mortem and toxicology reports were released by the Spanish authorities, the Gatelys’ lawyer reiterated that they believed his sudden death was due to natural causes,” she wrote.
tranger – did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.”
The article in question initially had the headline “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death” but this was later changed on the paper’s online edition to: “A strange, lonely and troubling death…”

In it she questioned the nature of his death: “Even before the post-mortem and toxicology reports were released by the Spanish authorities, t”Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.”

“Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.”

Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook provided a forum throughout the day for people to comment on Ms Moir’s opinion piece.

British actor Stephen Fry, who has almost 850,000 followers on Twitter said: “I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathesome and inhumane.”
he Gatelys’ lawyer reiterated that they believed his sudden death was due to natural causes,” she wrote.

In the complaint, Paxton claims that she lost her job and her daughter was forced to change schools because of discrimination against her daughter.

“What it all boils down to is my child’s situation and the fact that she is transgender,” said Paxton, who had worked for the TSC as a bus driver. “I never thought that after nearly 10 years of driving I’d be looking for a new job.”At this point it is our intent to cooperate fully with the human relations commission,” said Susan DeLong, TSC assistant superintendent for personnel. “This is the first complaint we have received through this channel, and we are working with our legal counsel to figure out the next step.”

Paxton said her daughter was harassed on a daily basis while attending McCutcheon High School. After months of working with school officials to resolve the issue, Paxton decided to enroll her daughter in the Elston Education Center during last school year. TSC does not provide transportation to Elston.

Because Paxton had to drop her daughter off at Elston after completing her bus route, changes had to be made in TSC’s parking structure to allow her to be the first one in and out of the bus lot each morning.

Paxton said the changes offended some drivers who felt she was receiving special treatment.
She said that she had to miss five days near the end of last school year because she was having panic attacks related to a “serious issue” involving her daughter, and those absences should have been excused.

A white cashier named Linda, looked at me disgustingly and said arrogantly you black people can only afford sale price items. There is a limit of 4 per customer. You were here the other day and got the same items.

She asked me to leave because the owner said only 4 items per customer. She said our owner is black and her boss was black too. What are you going to complain about your black skin?

What an experience for shopping there for the first time.

Costco pulled the dolls from its shelves in late July after a customer complained about the dolls. More complaints came in after the customer sent out an e-mail blast, said Art Jackson, a vice president at Costco.

He noted that there were three versions of the doll, representing different ethnicities. All three were pulled from the shelves.

Costco, based in Washington state, said it takes full responsibility for putting the dolls on the shelves. Jackson said he has “expressed our regrets that this did have the tendency to offend some folks .”

The department, along with the Human Relations Commission, issued its annual report to the Frederick County Commissioners last week.

The department and the commission are separate but related entities. The department, an arm of county government, provides services as defined by the county’s anti-discrimination regulation and accepts formal discrimination complaints.

The commission, with 15 volunteer members, sponsors multicultural events, advises county officials on human rights and monitors hate crimes and affirmative action in county agencies, among other functions.

According to a report written by director Henry Templeton, the department received and processed 18 complaints of discrimination, up from 3 in fiscal 2008.
Sixteen of those fiscal 2009 complaints were related to employment, one was in public accommodations and one in housing, the department report stated.

In April, county commissioners approved a change in the commission’s ordinance language to include the term “unlawful,” as it relates to discrimination in certain areas.

The department and the commission also rewrote and updated the commission’s regulations, which county commissioners approved in October 2008.

Also in October, the department conducted the first equal opportunity employment training for 541 county government directors, managers and supervisors, its report stated.

“Formal feedback indicates the training was well received and should greatly help ensure an ‘affirmative defense’ for the county against any future claims of unlawful discrimination,” the report stated.

The county Office of Human Rights investigates complaints of discrimination and tries to resolve them. It also investigates employment-related complaints made to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Anyone can file a complaint alleging violation of the Howard County code based on discrimination on a variety of factors, including race, national origin, age, and sex.
There were 100 such complaints filed in 2008, up from 89 the previous year, according to the April 7 report. Out of those, 84 were employment-related, 15 dealt with housing or public accommodation claims and one was law enforcement-related.

Of the employment claims, more than half — 46 — alleged racial discrimination. The next most common was gender discrimination, the report states. In 2007, race was also the most common employment-related complaint.

The office closed 87 cases last year, finding no reasonable cause behind the complaint in 54 of the incidents. The remaining cases either found evidence of discrimination, were resolved through mediation or were closed for other reasons.
The housing and employment complaints resulted in roughly $229,000 worth of settlements, down from $350,000 in 2006 and $247,000 in 2007, the report states. These figures do not include private confidential settlements that were reached outside of the county’s Human Rights office process.

Twenty-two complaints of racial profiling were received last year by the Nebraska Crime Commission, which issued its latest “Traffic Stops in Nebraska” report Tuesday.

That is twice as many as in 2007, and the most since the Legislature ordered the annual racial profiling studies to begin in 2002.

The Crime Commission indicated that of the 22 complaints, officers were exonerated in 19. The outcome of the three other cases was unknown, the commission report stated.

Overall, there were 502,127 traffic stops reported to the commission last year, of which half were by the Nebraska State Patrol

Lower Merion High School in Ardmore and Harriton High in Rosemont are being redistricted as part of an expensive project to build two new high schools with equal enrollments.

Redistricting was needed because more of the township’s families live near Lower Merion High School than near Harriton.

On Jan. 21, the Office for Civil Rights said it had received four complaints from South Ardmore alleging the redistricting plan was racist. It deliberated two months before deciding to investigate.

One of the South Ardmore residents said a letter she received dated Monday described the Office for Civil Rights as “a neutral factfinder collecting and analyzing relevant evidence from complainants and the district and other sources.”

“Opening this allegation for investigation in no way implies that we have made a determination