British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt accused Google on Thursday of abandoning its moral values by failing to remove child abuse content while launching a version of its search engine in China that will block some websites.

The British government has repeatedly criticized online platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for failing to remove abusive material or sexual content posted online even after they were notified.

“Seems extraordinary that Google is considering censoring its content to get into China but won’t cooperate with UK, US … in removing child abuse content,” Hunt said on Twitter. “They used to be so proud of being values-driven.”

Alphabet’s Google plans a search engine in China that will block some search terms and websites, two sources told Reuters earlier this month, in a move that could mark its return to a market it abandoned eight years ago on censorship concerns.

Google said in a statement they agreed with Hunt that child sexual abuse was “abhorrent and must be removed, that’s why we co-operate with governments to fight child sexual abuse online”.

Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand invited major technology companies to attend a meeting on tackling child abuse and extremism on their websites, but the firms declined to attend, the Daily Mail reported on Thursday.

Google said they did offer to send an executive to the conference.

In January, Prime Minister Theresa May used an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos to say investors should use their financial power to force internet firms into taking more responsibility for stopping militants and paedophiles using their platforms.

Google, which quit China’s search engine market in 2010, has been actively seeking ways to re-enter China where many of its products are blocked by regulators.

Leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have urged Google not to bow to censorship demands in China because by doing so, they allege, the company would be complicit in the repression of freedom of speech.

Search terms about human rights, democracy, religion and peaceful protests will be among the words blacklisted in the search engine app, which The Intercept website said had already been demonstrated to the Chinese government.

The project, code-named “Dragonfly”, has been under way since the spring of 2017, the news website said.

Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused thousands of children over a 70-year period and silenced victims through “the weaponization of faith” and a systematic cover-up campaign by their bishops, the state attorney general said on Tuesday.

An 884-page report made public by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro after a two-year investigation contained graphic examples of children being groomed and sexually abused by clergymen. It was largely based on documents from secret archives kept by the dioceses, including handwritten confessions by priests, he said.

“It was child sexual abuse, including rape, committed by grown men – priests – against children,” Shapiro told a press conference.

Representatives of the six Pennsylvania dioceses included in the report could not be reached for comment.

The attorney general said it was the most comprehensive report on Catholic clergy sex abuse in American history, nearly two decades after an expose of widespread abuse and cover-up in Boston that rocked the Roman Catholic Church.

Several of the dioceses issued statements apologising to victims and saying they were taking steps to ensure any criminal behaviour was stopped. “The grand jury has challenged us as a Catholic diocese to put victims first and to continue to improve ways to protect children and youth,” Bishop Lawrence Persico of the Erie Diocese said in a statement.

As accusers wept behind him, Shapiro described alleged abuse by priests in six of the state’s eight dioceses, including a group of Pittsburgh clergymen accused of ordering an altar boy to strip naked and pose as Christ on the cross while they photographed him.

“The pattern was abuse, deny and cover up,” Shapiro said, adding that church officials sought to keep abuse allegations quiet long enough so they could no longer be prosecuted under Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations.

“Priests were raping little boys and girls,” Shapiro said. “They hid it all for decades.”

The report cited 301 priests, some of whom have died. Only two of the priests are still subject to prosecution.

A few of the clergymen accused in the report succeeded in having their names redacted, and Shapiro said he would argue at a Sept. 26 court hearing for making all the names public.

He said the grand jury identified about a thousand victims, but believed there may be many more.

Shapiro said that one priest had molested five sisters in one family, he said. The diocese settled with the family after requiring a confidentiality agreement, he said.

The attorney general said that Catholic bishops covered up child sexual abuse by priests and reassigned them repeatedly to different parishes. “They allowed priests to remain active for as long as 40 years,” he said.

Describing the “weaponisation of faith” to silence victims, Shapiro cited several examples including one priest who allegedly told children “how Mary had to lick Jesus clean after he was born” to groom them for oral sex.

“Children were taught that this abuse was not only normal but that it was holy,” Shapiro said.

Since the Boston abuse scandal erupted in the 1990s, accusations involving American clerics have sporadically surfaced.

Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, resigned as a cardinal last month after accusations resurfaced that he abused a 16-year-old boy decades ago.

In recent months, Pope Francis accepted a number of resignations from Chilean bishops in a sex abuse scandal that has rocked that country.

A New Mexico judge received death threats and Islamophobic abuse on Tuesday a day after she granted bail to five Muslims charged with child abuse and accused of training children at their compound to carry out attacks, court officials said.

Police raided the compound in Taos County on Aug. 3 following a tip-off that children held there were starving. They found 11 children in need of food and water, and three days later unearthed the body of a toddler.

In an order published on Tuesday, district Judge Sarah Backus said prosecutors had produced evidence that was “troubling and unusual” but failed to show the defendants abused the children and were a threat to society if released on bail.

One caller on Tuesday told Backus “her throat would be slit” while another said he wished “someone would smash her head,” New Mexico courts spokesman Barry Massey said.

Backus was bombarded with abuse and criticism on Twitter, and received hundreds of calls and emails, most of which referred to her using terms like “Islamic terrorism sympathizer”, Massey said.

Backus closed her court and the Taos County courthouse went into lockdown after threats of violence against all staff.

Prosecutors alleged the dead toddler was a severely ill boy abducted from Georgia by his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, the son of a prominent New York imam. Prosecutors said the boy died at the compound in February as Ibn Wahhaj tried to heal him through prayer.

Prosecutors allege Wahhaj gave firearms training to two teenage boys at the compound to attack “corrupt institutions.”

New Mexico’s Republican Governor Susana Martinez slammed Backus’ bail decision in a statement, saying the state’s Supreme Court had been “dictating pretrial release for all kinds of dangerous criminals.”

The five defendants – two men, their wives and a sister – must wear GPS ankle bracelets once released on $20,000 bail each and are not allowed back to the compound, Backus ruled.

DIVIDED COMMUNITY

Their 11 children are in protective care and the defendants may visit them once released, Backus said.

The case has split the Taos County community between those who believe the group was involved in a failed attempt to live “off the grid,” and others who fear they were hatching a plot to attack schools, banks and police, as prosecutors alleged.

“There’s a murderer in the bunch,” said Larry Salazar, 67, a rancher who lives about 2 miles from the high-desert compound. “What are we going to do to protect ourselves? Where are they going to be going to?”.

Another resident, named Quincy, who requested his full name not be used, said he didn’t think the defendants were dangerous, “especially when they came in here using their real names and introduced themselves to every possible person who was their neighbour.”

Ibn Wahhaj has not entered a plea but the other four adults have plead not guilty. Wahhaj must remain in custody as he still faces a Georgia arrest warrant for the abduction of his son.

Ibn Wahhaj’s wife Jany Leveille, 35, from Haiti, was taken into custody by immigration officials on Tuesday, according to the Taos County Sheriff’s Office.

Pope Francis recognised on Monday measures that Chile’s bishops said they would take to assist prosecutors investigating allegations of sex abuse that have plagued the Roman Catholic Church in Chile, including that they would work to reach an agreement with prosecutors on an exchange of information.

The pontiff wrote in a letter released to media on Monday by the Chilean Church that the steps taken at a conclave last week were “realistic and concrete” and that he was confident they would make a “decisive” difference.

After a week-long leadership conclave, the bishops asked for forgiveness, saying in a statement on Friday that they had failed to aid and accompany victims who had suffered “grave sins and injustices committed by priests and clergy.”

Fernando Ramos, secretary-general of the Episcopal Conference, said last Friday that they also wanted “to reach an agreement [with prosecutors] to assure a fluid exchange of information, one that meets our standards, as well as the requirements of the Public Ministry.”

Chilean law enforcement is investigating 38 accusations of sexual abuse against 73 bishops, clerics and lay workers, involving 104 victims.

“I was impressed by the reflection, discernment and decisions that were made,” the pope wrote. “But what struck me most was the example of a unified episcopal community. Thank you for this edifying example.”

Chilean prosecutors said last week that they had asked the government to submit a formal request to the Vatican for information about nine clergymen and lay workers who have been accused of sexual abuse of children.

“We will make public every prior investigation into alleged sexual abuse of children that has occurred in our jurisdictions. We will ask the same of officials at all religious congregations,” Santiago Silva, president of the Episcopal Conference, told reporters last week.

Politicians across Europe are calling for a ban on the Islamic veil but Bosnian Muslim Indira Sinanovic is defying the trend as well as widespread prejudice in her own country, becoming the first fully-veiled woman here to run for public office.

Sinanovic, 37, wears the niqab – a garment that covers the hair and all the face apart from the eyes – and her aim if elected to the council in her central Bosnian hometown of Zavidovici is to battle prejudice and social exclusion.

Bosnia has no laws against the public wearing of the niqab and the burqa, clothes that have come to be associated with a fundamentalist reading of Islam, but a ban on court officials wearing headscarves has made Sinanovic and other activists wary.

“It’s the basic right of every citizen,” said the outspoken mother of two, speaking ahead of Sunday’s election in the office of IML (Islam My Life) Television in the town of Zenica, where she works as a journalist.

“(If elected) I would try to turn attention to the people who live in poverty, to be their voice in the municipal council and push for projects to improve their social status,” she said.

Bosnia has one of Europe’s largest indigenous Muslim populations, a legacy of its centuries-long history as part of the Ottoman Empire, but prejudice against overt displays of religion is widespread and Sinanovic has borne her share of it.

Sinanovic, who wears a long black robe and hides her eyes behind glasses, says she herself has been called names in the street such as “Ninja” or “Terrorist” or has been told “Go to Afghanistan” and “Go to Syria”.

Islam has traditionally been very liberal in multi-ethnic Bosnia, which for nearly 50 years was part of officially atheist Yugoslavia, but attitudes have shifted since the three-year Bosnian war, when Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs fought a war of “ethnic cleansing” that cost 100,000 lives.

Poverty is still widespread 20 years later and Bosnia remains deeply divided between Serbs, Croats and the Muslim Bosniaks.

Arab mujahideen fighters who came to help their Bosniak co-religionists during the war brought more conservative habits with them, as did an influx of Saudi money after the war, much of which financed the building of traditionalist mosques.

Racism is not the domain of any specific racial, religious or cultural group. That is a fact and blaming a particular group for racism is not reflective of what is taking place. Factually, though, we know that street based anti-Muslim prejudice is perpetrated mainly by white males, between the ages of 15-35. This not to blame a specific racial group, it is to highlight the demographic of where perpetrators are coming from.

Yet, as we have suggested, it is not found just in one community. It can be found in all communities and vigilance against it is essential.

It is therefore particularly depressing when we find antagonism and inferences to prejudice and bigotry in the language of those from BAME (Black and Minority Ethnic) groups. In this video, of an incident in Alum Rock, Birmingham, the depressing reality of issues comes to light.

In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, there was a sense of solidarity between BAME groups as they came together to tackle overt racism which saw individuals attacked in the street because of their race. That solidarity was a source of strength in some of the most difficult moments.

That said, racism and bigotry against the majority community is unacceptable. We cannot tackle racism and bigotry without tackling all forms of it and this forms the moral basis of the work. In the meantime, we hope that BAME communities take time to come together and campaign on issues to ensure that prejudice is tackled. This also means including Jewish communities who have given much in the fight against racism, bigotry and prejudice.

The post Does Black on Black Abuse Show a Breakdown in BAME Solidarity? appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We were contacted by a Muslim mother who had left her house to drop off her children to school.

She left home before 9 am on the 8th of December 2015 and the day started off pretty routine, though little did she know that it would end up with finding a cut out picture of a grenade in her drive-way.

The parent has stated that she has not had any trouble before in her neighbourhood and that she has been shaken by the experience which she regards as being anti-Muslim oriented, given her faith and the association with a grenade. She also felt that this has been triggered post the Paris terrorist incidents and that whoever targeted her was sending a message that was anti-Muslim and bigoted in nature.

Apart from the anti-Muslim bigotry, she also felt vulnerable and threatened that someone would come into her driveway and take the time to cut out the picture and place it in the driveway.

The post Cut out Picture of a Grenade Placed in the Driveway of Muslim Family appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Two Glasgow based young female Muslims contacted Tell MAMA today. The young women are aged 16 and 21 years old and with the younger female wearing a Hijab and the older one, a Hijab and a Niqab.

On Saturday the 17th of October at 11 pm, the girls were waiting to enjoy some desserts in a restaurant and noticed a group of two white males and females. As they walked past the table of the sisters, one of the men was overheard saying, “why has she got that on her face,” at the Niqab wearing female. The sisters decided to ignore the comment and carried on looking through the menus.

A little while later the Niqab wearing female headed to the toilets and as she did, she noticed loud shouting coming from her table. She turned round and headed back to find the group harassing her elder sister and they stated, “get that f***** piece of s*** of your head you b****“. The group were swearing at the seated Muslim female and as the young sister approach the table, the group started abusing her. They stated, “and why has she got her f***** face covered.“

The women stated to Tell MAMA that none of the staff who heard the anti-Muslim abuse intervened. Both sisters did not react as the abuse continued in the restaurant with no bystander helping in any way.

The perpetrators it seems, decided to continue conversations with staff in the restaurant and as one of the females got up to order some food from the till, she was informed that the staff could not serve them. Hungry, angry and humiliated the young women left the restaurant and felt that the staff had acted in a manner which supported the actions of the perpetrators.

This case has been passed to Police Scotland for action.

The post Glasgow Based Hate Incident Shows Aggression Levels That are Concerning appeared first on TELL MAMA.