Former leader of cult-like Ontario church pleads guilty to assault
Fred King admitted to spitting on people, kicking, punching or slapping church members and making some of them strip in front of the congregation.
By The Canadian Press Tues., May 10, 2016
OWEN SOUND, ONT.—The former leader of a southwestern Ontario church that police have described as cult-like pleaded guilty Tuesday in an Owen Sound, Ont., court to nine counts of assault.
Fred King, 57, of Chatsworth Township, Ont., is to be sentenced on Sept. 14.
In an agreed statement of facts read in court by Crown Attorney Michael Martin, King admits to spitting on people, kicking, punching or slapping church members and making some of them strip in front of the rest of the congregation.
While King pleaded guilty to the assault charges, 16 other charges — including sexual assault, sexual interference, and uttering death threats — were withdrawn by the Crown.
Known as “The Prophet” at the Church of Jesus Christ Restored in Chatsworth, Ont., King’s charges relate to his time as leader of the Church from 1978 to 2008....
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/05/10/former-leader-of-cult-like-ontario-church-pleads-guilty-to-assault.html
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Judge Allows A CIA Torture Lawsuit To Move Forward For The First Time
"The CIA program violated not only international and U.S. prohibitions on torture — it also violated the well-established ban on non-consensual human experimentation."
Judge Allows A CIA Torture Lawsuit To Move Forward For The First Time
The three men at the heart of the case were beaten, held in coffin-sized boxes, and hung from metal rods.
04/22/2016 Jessica Schulberg Foreign Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post
SPOKANE, Wash. — A federal judge indicated Friday he will deny a request from two CIA-contracted psychologists to throw out a lawsuit filed on behalf of three victims of the agency’s now-defunct enhanced interrogation program.
“I don’t think I have any other choice,” said Senior Judge Justin L. Quackenbush of the Eastern District of Washington, indicating that he would allow the case to move forward despite objections from the psychologists’ lawyers, who claimed their clients are immune from civil liability.
The decision was a landmark victory for the American Civil Liberties Union, the group representing Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, as well as the family of Gul Rahman, who died in CIA custody in 2002. The ACLU is seeking damages for their clients from the two psychologists, who they allege in their complaint “designed, implemented, and personally administered an experimental torture program for the [CIA].”
“This has never happened before,” Hina Shamsi, an ACLU lawyer on the case, told reporters outside the courtroom after the hearing. She and her team didn’t expect the judge to make a decision on whether to scrap the case so quickly and appeared genuinely surprised that he ruled in their favor.
“There have been so many cases brought by torture victims ... and not one of them has been able to go forward, for shameful reasons,” Shamsi said. “This is a very big deal for our clients.”
The three men represented by the ACLU were identified in the Senate’s 500-page executive summary of a 6,000-page report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program” as being exposed to brutal interrogation methods that constitute torture. They were waterboarded, beaten, hung from metal rods, held in coffin-sized boxes, and deprived of light, food, and sleep....
The Senate report refers to psychologists James Elmer Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen using pseudonyms, and describes their integral role in creating and executing an interrogation program that taught prisoners “learned helplessness” by exposing them to uncontrollable pain. The duo’s company received $81 million from the CIA for the work on the interrogation program.
Spokane....it’s where Mitchell and Jessen, who both taught U.S. soldiers survival, evasion, resistance and escape techniques at the nearby Fairchild Air Force Base, set up shop when they contracted with the intelligence agency....
Although President Barack Obama outlawed the use of torture early in his administration, he has declined to prosecute individuals responsible for creating and implementing the torture program operated by the CIA between 2002 and 2007, setting a precedent of immunity for those involved.
The U.S. government has blocked past efforts by the ACLU to sue individuals and entities for actions related to CIA torture by arguing that the lawsuits risked exposing state secrets. Judges dismissed those prior cases, ruling in a way that Ladin described Friday as “overly deferential” to the government....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cia-torture-lawsuit_us_571a8fdbe4b0d0042da94ac0
Out of the Darkness
How two psychologists teamed up with the CIA to devise a torture program and experiment on human beings.
....For more than a month, Suleiman endured an incessant barrage of torture techniques designed to psychologically destroy him. His torturers repeatedly doused him with ice-cold water. They beat him and slammed him into walls. They hung him from a metal rod, his toes barely touching the floor. They chained him in other painful stress positions for days at a time. They starved him, deprived him of sleep, and stuffed him inside small boxes. With the torture came terrifying interrogation sessions in which he was grilled about what he was doing in Somalia and the names of people, all but one of whom he’d never heard of.
After four or five weeks of this relentless pain and suffering, Suleiman’s torturers assessed him as psychologically broken and incapable of resisting them. Suleiman could take no more. He decided to end his life by consuming painkillers he had stockpiled. But as he began to take the pills, guards stormed into his cell to stop him. He was then shackled, hooded, and driven a short distance to another CIA prison close by — a prison Suleiman came to know as the “Salt Pit.” Although Suleiman’s torture would continue for many years more, the very worst of it was over.
Anatomy of an Abduction
A year and two months later, the CIA handed Suleiman over to the U.S. military, which imprisoned him at Bagram, also in Afghanistan. Finally, in 2008, after more than five years in U.S. custody, with no charges ever leveled against him, he was sent home with a document confirming he posed no threat to the United States. His family had heard nothing of him since his disappearance, and they had presumed him dead.
But even once home in his native Zanzibar, Suleiman felt far from free. Constant flashbacks transported him back to his torture at the hands of his CIA captors. After years of near-starvation he was unable to eat normally. He suffered splitting headaches and pain throughout his body from the torture. Prolonged isolation left him unaccustomed to human interaction. Despite repeated attempts, he couldn’t find Magida. Unable to sleep due to the torment of his memories and the physical pain, he found limited solace playing with his family’s rabbits in the middle of the night....
Suleiman’s trauma is not just a consequence of his ordeal in American prisons. It was the CIA’s goal, through a program designed and executed by two psychologists the agency contracted to run its torture operations, to break his mind. Integral to the program was the idea that once a detainee had been psychologically destroyed through torture, he would become compliant and cooperate with interrogators’ demands. The theory behind the goal had never been scientifically tested because such trials would violate human experimentation bans established after Nazi experiments and atrocities during World War II. Yet that theory would drive an experiment in some of the worst systematic brutality ever inflicted on detainees in modern American history. Today, three of the many victims and survivors of that experiment are seeking justice through a lawsuit against the men who designed and implemented that program for the CIA.
Mitchell and Jessen were two former U.S. military psychologists contracted by the CIA to design, develop, and run the agency’s detention, rendition, and interrogation operations. As psychologists in the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program, the two men had devoted their careers to training U.S. troops to resist abusive treatment in case of capture by governments that violate the Geneva Conventions. SERE teaches resistance by subjecting students to carefully controlled versions of harsh techniques used by China, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union, often to extract false confessions from captives for propaganda purposes. During training, psychologists like Mitchell and Jessen are on hand to monitor trainees’ psychological well-being and to ensure that SERE instructors don’t go too far.
But Mitchell and Jessen intensified and manipulated SERE techniques so they bore little relation to those used on SERE recruits. Whereas SERE training was intended to help strengthen the resolve of American recruits, Mitchell and Jessen’s techniques were designed to achieve the exact opposite result: to break detainees and turn their minds into putty in interrogators’ hands....
Mitchell and Jessen were interested in applying the psychological concept of “learned helplessness” to interrogation. Psychologist Martin Seligman pioneered studies on the phenomenon in experiments he conducted on dogs in the 1960s. Seligman used the term “learned helplessness” to describe the state of utter passivity prompted by a series of negative events that leads subjects to believe there is nothing they can do to escape their suffering. Seligman conducted his experiments by administering electric shocks to different groups of dogs. When given the chance to avoid their pain, the dogs in his experiment that had been able to escape the shocks did so quickly. Those that couldn’t stop the pain didn’t even try to avoid it, even when given the opportunity. They believed they had no ability to control their fates. They had learned helplessness.
Mitchell and Jessen posited that this theory could be applied to interrogation — that harsh measures could be used to break any resistance of al-Qaida captives by inducing a state of learned helplessness. Torture would “shape compliance” with interrogation, Mitchell and Jessen theorized. Once detainees were abused to the point of learned helplessness, resistance would crumble, and the detainees would divulge information that they might otherwise withhold.
No legitimate science backs up this assumption. Research on inducing a sustained state of learned helplessness in humans through abuse, or on the role of learned helplessness in eliciting truthful information, does not exist for the simple reason that it can’t be legally or ethically conducted....
The CIA program violated not only international and U.S. prohibitions on torture — it also violated the well-established ban on non-consensual human experimentation. The Nuremburg Code, in place since 1947, was the basis for the prosecution and convictions of World War II Nazi doctors. It forbids any research on human subjects without their informed consent. Numerous other treaties and ethics codes include similar bans, recognizing that any experimentation, however benign, on human subjects without their consent or on prisoners, is inherently cruel, inhuman, or degrading.
Mitchell and Jessen, however, were undeterred by law, ethics, or the lessons of history. The torture program they designed and implemented at the behest of the CIA by its very design required ongoing experimentation on its human subjects. They did not know how the detainees would react to the torture techniques they devised, or if the detainees would even survive them. They did not know whether and how much torture would be needed to induce learned helplessness in a particular detainee, or whether once a detainee’s mind was broken, he would produce truthful information. They had, after all, adapted the torture techniques from those used by authoritarian regimes to extract false confessions....
After weeks of debate, and over objections from the State Department, President George W. Bush ultimately issued the final word on the matter. In a February 2002 memo, he stated that al-Qaida and Taliban detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions....
Mitchell and Jessen made out handsomely too. From 2001 until 2005, as consultants to the CIA, they made $1.5 and $1.1 million, respectively. In 2005, they formed a company, Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, to supply the CIA with more personnel to help implement and expand their program. Until the termination in 2010 of the CIA’s contract with Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, the company received $81 million for its torture services, financed by the American taxpayer....
https://www.aclu.org/feature/out-darkness
Judge Allows A CIA Torture Lawsuit To Move Forward For The First Time
The three men at the heart of the case were beaten, held in coffin-sized boxes, and hung from metal rods.
04/22/2016 Jessica Schulberg Foreign Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post
SPOKANE, Wash. — A federal judge indicated Friday he will deny a request from two CIA-contracted psychologists to throw out a lawsuit filed on behalf of three victims of the agency’s now-defunct enhanced interrogation program.
“I don’t think I have any other choice,” said Senior Judge Justin L. Quackenbush of the Eastern District of Washington, indicating that he would allow the case to move forward despite objections from the psychologists’ lawyers, who claimed their clients are immune from civil liability.
The decision was a landmark victory for the American Civil Liberties Union, the group representing Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, as well as the family of Gul Rahman, who died in CIA custody in 2002. The ACLU is seeking damages for their clients from the two psychologists, who they allege in their complaint “designed, implemented, and personally administered an experimental torture program for the [CIA].”
“This has never happened before,” Hina Shamsi, an ACLU lawyer on the case, told reporters outside the courtroom after the hearing. She and her team didn’t expect the judge to make a decision on whether to scrap the case so quickly and appeared genuinely surprised that he ruled in their favor.
“There have been so many cases brought by torture victims ... and not one of them has been able to go forward, for shameful reasons,” Shamsi said. “This is a very big deal for our clients.”
The three men represented by the ACLU were identified in the Senate’s 500-page executive summary of a 6,000-page report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program” as being exposed to brutal interrogation methods that constitute torture. They were waterboarded, beaten, hung from metal rods, held in coffin-sized boxes, and deprived of light, food, and sleep....
The Senate report refers to psychologists James Elmer Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen using pseudonyms, and describes their integral role in creating and executing an interrogation program that taught prisoners “learned helplessness” by exposing them to uncontrollable pain. The duo’s company received $81 million from the CIA for the work on the interrogation program.
Spokane....it’s where Mitchell and Jessen, who both taught U.S. soldiers survival, evasion, resistance and escape techniques at the nearby Fairchild Air Force Base, set up shop when they contracted with the intelligence agency....
Although President Barack Obama outlawed the use of torture early in his administration, he has declined to prosecute individuals responsible for creating and implementing the torture program operated by the CIA between 2002 and 2007, setting a precedent of immunity for those involved.
The U.S. government has blocked past efforts by the ACLU to sue individuals and entities for actions related to CIA torture by arguing that the lawsuits risked exposing state secrets. Judges dismissed those prior cases, ruling in a way that Ladin described Friday as “overly deferential” to the government....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cia-torture-lawsuit_us_571a8fdbe4b0d0042da94ac0
Out of the Darkness
How two psychologists teamed up with the CIA to devise a torture program and experiment on human beings.
....For more than a month, Suleiman endured an incessant barrage of torture techniques designed to psychologically destroy him. His torturers repeatedly doused him with ice-cold water. They beat him and slammed him into walls. They hung him from a metal rod, his toes barely touching the floor. They chained him in other painful stress positions for days at a time. They starved him, deprived him of sleep, and stuffed him inside small boxes. With the torture came terrifying interrogation sessions in which he was grilled about what he was doing in Somalia and the names of people, all but one of whom he’d never heard of.
After four or five weeks of this relentless pain and suffering, Suleiman’s torturers assessed him as psychologically broken and incapable of resisting them. Suleiman could take no more. He decided to end his life by consuming painkillers he had stockpiled. But as he began to take the pills, guards stormed into his cell to stop him. He was then shackled, hooded, and driven a short distance to another CIA prison close by — a prison Suleiman came to know as the “Salt Pit.” Although Suleiman’s torture would continue for many years more, the very worst of it was over.
Anatomy of an Abduction
A year and two months later, the CIA handed Suleiman over to the U.S. military, which imprisoned him at Bagram, also in Afghanistan. Finally, in 2008, after more than five years in U.S. custody, with no charges ever leveled against him, he was sent home with a document confirming he posed no threat to the United States. His family had heard nothing of him since his disappearance, and they had presumed him dead.
But even once home in his native Zanzibar, Suleiman felt far from free. Constant flashbacks transported him back to his torture at the hands of his CIA captors. After years of near-starvation he was unable to eat normally. He suffered splitting headaches and pain throughout his body from the torture. Prolonged isolation left him unaccustomed to human interaction. Despite repeated attempts, he couldn’t find Magida. Unable to sleep due to the torment of his memories and the physical pain, he found limited solace playing with his family’s rabbits in the middle of the night....
Suleiman’s trauma is not just a consequence of his ordeal in American prisons. It was the CIA’s goal, through a program designed and executed by two psychologists the agency contracted to run its torture operations, to break his mind. Integral to the program was the idea that once a detainee had been psychologically destroyed through torture, he would become compliant and cooperate with interrogators’ demands. The theory behind the goal had never been scientifically tested because such trials would violate human experimentation bans established after Nazi experiments and atrocities during World War II. Yet that theory would drive an experiment in some of the worst systematic brutality ever inflicted on detainees in modern American history. Today, three of the many victims and survivors of that experiment are seeking justice through a lawsuit against the men who designed and implemented that program for the CIA.
Mitchell and Jessen were two former U.S. military psychologists contracted by the CIA to design, develop, and run the agency’s detention, rendition, and interrogation operations. As psychologists in the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program, the two men had devoted their careers to training U.S. troops to resist abusive treatment in case of capture by governments that violate the Geneva Conventions. SERE teaches resistance by subjecting students to carefully controlled versions of harsh techniques used by China, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union, often to extract false confessions from captives for propaganda purposes. During training, psychologists like Mitchell and Jessen are on hand to monitor trainees’ psychological well-being and to ensure that SERE instructors don’t go too far.
But Mitchell and Jessen intensified and manipulated SERE techniques so they bore little relation to those used on SERE recruits. Whereas SERE training was intended to help strengthen the resolve of American recruits, Mitchell and Jessen’s techniques were designed to achieve the exact opposite result: to break detainees and turn their minds into putty in interrogators’ hands....
Mitchell and Jessen were interested in applying the psychological concept of “learned helplessness” to interrogation. Psychologist Martin Seligman pioneered studies on the phenomenon in experiments he conducted on dogs in the 1960s. Seligman used the term “learned helplessness” to describe the state of utter passivity prompted by a series of negative events that leads subjects to believe there is nothing they can do to escape their suffering. Seligman conducted his experiments by administering electric shocks to different groups of dogs. When given the chance to avoid their pain, the dogs in his experiment that had been able to escape the shocks did so quickly. Those that couldn’t stop the pain didn’t even try to avoid it, even when given the opportunity. They believed they had no ability to control their fates. They had learned helplessness.
Mitchell and Jessen posited that this theory could be applied to interrogation — that harsh measures could be used to break any resistance of al-Qaida captives by inducing a state of learned helplessness. Torture would “shape compliance” with interrogation, Mitchell and Jessen theorized. Once detainees were abused to the point of learned helplessness, resistance would crumble, and the detainees would divulge information that they might otherwise withhold.
No legitimate science backs up this assumption. Research on inducing a sustained state of learned helplessness in humans through abuse, or on the role of learned helplessness in eliciting truthful information, does not exist for the simple reason that it can’t be legally or ethically conducted....
The CIA program violated not only international and U.S. prohibitions on torture — it also violated the well-established ban on non-consensual human experimentation. The Nuremburg Code, in place since 1947, was the basis for the prosecution and convictions of World War II Nazi doctors. It forbids any research on human subjects without their informed consent. Numerous other treaties and ethics codes include similar bans, recognizing that any experimentation, however benign, on human subjects without their consent or on prisoners, is inherently cruel, inhuman, or degrading.
Mitchell and Jessen, however, were undeterred by law, ethics, or the lessons of history. The torture program they designed and implemented at the behest of the CIA by its very design required ongoing experimentation on its human subjects. They did not know how the detainees would react to the torture techniques they devised, or if the detainees would even survive them. They did not know whether and how much torture would be needed to induce learned helplessness in a particular detainee, or whether once a detainee’s mind was broken, he would produce truthful information. They had, after all, adapted the torture techniques from those used by authoritarian regimes to extract false confessions....
After weeks of debate, and over objections from the State Department, President George W. Bush ultimately issued the final word on the matter. In a February 2002 memo, he stated that al-Qaida and Taliban detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions....
Mitchell and Jessen made out handsomely too. From 2001 until 2005, as consultants to the CIA, they made $1.5 and $1.1 million, respectively. In 2005, they formed a company, Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, to supply the CIA with more personnel to help implement and expand their program. Until the termination in 2010 of the CIA’s contract with Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, the company received $81 million for its torture services, financed by the American taxpayer....
https://www.aclu.org/feature/out-darkness
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Satanic Cult Sex Offender Jailed 18 Years, Priest removed for sex abuse works at pregnancy center for teens
Malawi: Satanic Cult Sex Offender Jailed 18 Years - Student Tells Malawi Court He Indulged in Occult
9 May 2016 Nyasa Times (Leeds)
By Maurice Nkawihe
There were shocking revelations when Mzuzu Second Grade Magistrate convicted and imposed jail term on Chibavi Community Day Secondary student Peter Mhango for repeatedly defiling an eight-year-old girl.
Mhango was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment with hard labour on Wednesday last week, but shocked the court when he revealed that he was a member of a Satanic sex cult and that his under-dealings were a fulfillment of a covenant with the devil.
It was revealed in court that Mhango had been defiling the girl, who happen to be a relation, on several occasions between 2015 and 2016....
The victim's friend then reported to her grandmother and revealed that Mhango had been having cult sex sessions with her friend (the victim). When the victim was quizzed on the issue she admitted. The matter was reported to Luwinga Police who referred the victim to Mzuzu Central Hospital. Medical report indicated defilement has been taking place.
Mhango voluntarily pleaded guilty to the charge.
However, it was during mitigation that Mhango revealed that he had been defiling the victim in order to feed the spiritual demon which has been tormenting him since he was in standard five.
He said defiling children was a fulfillment of the covenant he made when he joined the Satanic Cult....
http://allafrica.com/stories/201605100764.html
Priest removed for sex abuse works at pregnancy center for teens
Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press May 9, 2016
Catholic priest removed in 2009 from two churches amid allegations he abused teen is now a director at Eastpointe center for teens that he cofounded
A Catholic priest removed from churches in metro Detroit after he was accused of sexually abusing a teenager is now the development director of a new Catholic center in Eastpointe he cofounded that counsels pregnant teenagers, prompting calls for him to step down.
The Rev. Kenneth Kaucheck, 69, was banned from public ministry by the Archdiocese of Detroit in 2009 after church officials determined he had sexual misconduct in the 1970s with a 16-year-old girl he was counseling as a priest.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/macomb/2016/05/08/priest-removed-sex-abuse-works-teens-pregnancy-center/83871114/
9 May 2016 Nyasa Times (Leeds)
By Maurice Nkawihe
There were shocking revelations when Mzuzu Second Grade Magistrate convicted and imposed jail term on Chibavi Community Day Secondary student Peter Mhango for repeatedly defiling an eight-year-old girl.
Mhango was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment with hard labour on Wednesday last week, but shocked the court when he revealed that he was a member of a Satanic sex cult and that his under-dealings were a fulfillment of a covenant with the devil.
It was revealed in court that Mhango had been defiling the girl, who happen to be a relation, on several occasions between 2015 and 2016....
The victim's friend then reported to her grandmother and revealed that Mhango had been having cult sex sessions with her friend (the victim). When the victim was quizzed on the issue she admitted. The matter was reported to Luwinga Police who referred the victim to Mzuzu Central Hospital. Medical report indicated defilement has been taking place.
Mhango voluntarily pleaded guilty to the charge.
However, it was during mitigation that Mhango revealed that he had been defiling the victim in order to feed the spiritual demon which has been tormenting him since he was in standard five.
He said defiling children was a fulfillment of the covenant he made when he joined the Satanic Cult....
http://allafrica.com/stories/201605100764.html
Priest removed for sex abuse works at pregnancy center for teens
Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press May 9, 2016
Catholic priest removed in 2009 from two churches amid allegations he abused teen is now a director at Eastpointe center for teens that he cofounded
A Catholic priest removed from churches in metro Detroit after he was accused of sexually abusing a teenager is now the development director of a new Catholic center in Eastpointe he cofounded that counsels pregnant teenagers, prompting calls for him to step down.
The Rev. Kenneth Kaucheck, 69, was banned from public ministry by the Archdiocese of Detroit in 2009 after church officials determined he had sexual misconduct in the 1970s with a 16-year-old girl he was counseling as a priest.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/macomb/2016/05/08/priest-removed-sex-abuse-works-teens-pregnancy-center/83871114/
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Former students call for inquiry into assault claims, Zambia police arrest four suspects for ritual murders that sparked riots
Former students call for inquiry into assault claims
By Jonathan Saltzman and Jenn Abelson Globe Staff May 10, 2016
Two former students of the Fessenden School in Newton on Monday demanded a federal inquiry into alleged sexual assaults by staffers there in the 1960s and 1970s, saying they believe the suspected abuse extends far beyond the 17 individuals the school says have come forward.
Adrian Hooper and John Sweeney, two former Fessenden students who allege they were sexually assaulted, spoke at an emotional news conference at the Boston office of their lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian....
The news conference came a day after the Globe Spotlight team reported that at least 67 private schools in New England have since 1991 faced allegations that at least 200 students were abused or harassed by staffers. Separately, Phillips Academy in Andover confirmed Monday a new claim of misconduct toward a student by a former English teacher....
Only recently, Hooper added, he realized that one of two teachers who had him and several other boys masturbate each other in what they were told was a “Mayan ritual” at Fessenden was Clarridge. He recognized Clarridge in a photograph from an online Harvard publication provided by a Globe reporter, he said, and nearly threw up.
The Fessenden School, whose famous alumni include Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Howard Hughes, has not disputed any specific allegations of abuse documented in the Globe article on Sunday. The school says that at least 12 former students have come forward since Fessenden sent a letter to the school community in 2011 reporting claims of abuse there since the 1960s. All told, the school says, 17 victims have alleged abuse by at least five former staffers.
The school reiterated an apology in a statement Monday....
The two former students called on the school to provide all records about at least four cases that Fessenden says it settled with alleged victims since the 1990s.
The school issued a statement Monday saying: “We are deeply saddened, and we apologize on behalf of the school to those who were harmed. In 2011, The Fessenden School acknowledged and apologized for abuses that took place decades ago and offered counseling to anyone who was harmed. We have acted with compassion and concern for the victims.’’....
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/05/09/former-fessenden-school-students-call-for-federal-inquiry-into-alleged-assaults-staffers-decades-ago/xiNzJcq7OhkmlYgIHLfG7K/story.html
Zambia police arrest four suspects for ritual murders that sparked riots
Reuters World May 10, 2016
LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia police said on Tuesday four suspects have been arrested in connection with a string of grisly ritual murders in the southern African nation's capital that triggered anti-foreign riots targeting mostly Rwandan migrants in April.
The arrested suspects are two army soldiers, a civilian employee of the Zambian Air Force and a traditional doctor, police said. They were to appear in court Tuesday afternoon charged with seven counts of murder.
"All the murders which the accused have been charged with were committed in a similar manner by crushing the left side of the head, removing body parts and later dumping the deceased near their homes," police said in a statement.
Police said in April that the victims had ears, hearts and genitals removed, raising suspicion of ritual killings.
Human body parts are sometimes used in traditional remedies and concoctions in southern Africa. The practice is linked to witchcraft beliefs.... http://www.investing.com/news/world-news/zambia-police-arrest-four-suspects-for-ritual-murders-that-sparked-riots-401105
Monday, May 9, 2016
Editorial Ethical standards, truths, and lies
Editorial Ethical standards, truths, and lies
Bethany L. Brand Ph & Linda McEwen MA
Journal of Trauma & Dissociation Volume 17, Issue 3, 2016 pages 259-266
DOI: 10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
This is an editorial about recent social and professional ethical developments that may signal attempts to arrive at truth about critical aspects of trauma after decades of lies and cover-ups. The first development came with the release of the Hoffman Report (Hoffman et al., 2015a), an investigation of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) complicity in abusive, traumatizing interrogations of political detainees, with one particular reference of note to this discussion. Another development was the publication of The Witch-Hunt Narrative by Ross Cheit (2014), which challenges widely held misconceptions about victims of child abuse and their credibility perpetuated since the preschool child abuse trials of the 1980s.
The ethical standards for International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) members are derived from the ethical guidelines of national and professional groups (ISSTD, 2015). For psychologists who are members of the ISSTD, the APA provides ethical principles (APA, 2010), including general principles and ethical standards. Not only did some powerful people within the APA fail to follow its principles and standards, but, as noted in the Hoffman Report, it was the APA ethics director who was among those complicit in this failure.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
Article PDF
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
Bethany L. Brand Ph & Linda McEwen MA
Journal of Trauma & Dissociation Volume 17, Issue 3, 2016 pages 259-266
DOI: 10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
This is an editorial about recent social and professional ethical developments that may signal attempts to arrive at truth about critical aspects of trauma after decades of lies and cover-ups. The first development came with the release of the Hoffman Report (Hoffman et al., 2015a), an investigation of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) complicity in abusive, traumatizing interrogations of political detainees, with one particular reference of note to this discussion. Another development was the publication of The Witch-Hunt Narrative by Ross Cheit (2014), which challenges widely held misconceptions about victims of child abuse and their credibility perpetuated since the preschool child abuse trials of the 1980s.
The ethical standards for International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) members are derived from the ethical guidelines of national and professional groups (ISSTD, 2015). For psychologists who are members of the ISSTD, the APA provides ethical principles (APA, 2010), including general principles and ethical standards. Not only did some powerful people within the APA fail to follow its principles and standards, but, as noted in the Hoffman Report, it was the APA ethics director who was among those complicit in this failure.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
Article PDF
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
Report: Joe Paterno told alleged Jerry Sandusky victim to forget about sex abuse, Penn State settlements covered 1971 Sandusky abuse claim
Report: Joe Paterno told alleged Jerry Sandusky victim to forget about sex abuse
USA TODAY Sports May 7, 2016
A court order claims that former Penn State football coach knew of sexual abuse allegations as early as 1976. USA TODAY Sports
A second report has surfaced that late Penn State coach Joe Paterno was informed in the 1970s of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children.
In a CNN report released Friday, a man described as a troubled young kid in 1971 said he was raped by Sandusky in a Penn State bathroom. Then, he told CNN, Paterno ignored his complaint about it.
Also Friday, NBC Sports reported that “as many as six” Penn State assistant coaches witnessed abusive acts by Sandusky, dating to the 1970s.
The latest allegations come one day after PennLive reported that Paterno was allegedly told in 1976 about an accusation of child sexual abuse by Sandusky.
The PennLive report cites a court order connected to an insurance coverage case involving Penn State. The order includes a line that one of the school’s insurers has claimed “in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.” The filing also cites incidents of other assistant football coaches witnessing “inappropriate contact between Sandusky and unidentified children.”
Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse in June 2012, five months after Paterno’s death, and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison. Lawyers for Sandusky, 72, have been in court this week attempting to overturn his conviction.
In CNN's report Friday, the accuser — who was 15 at the time of the alleged attack in 1971 — said he has never before spoken publicly about the abuse but that he did confide in a friend in the 1970s. That friend verified the story, CNN says....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/05/06/penn-state-jerry-sandusky-child-sex-abuse-1970s-assistant-coaches-joe-paterno/84046678/
Sandusky victim: Joe Paterno told me to drop abuse accusation
By Sara Ganim, CNN Sun May 8, 2016
After four years of feuding over the legacy of Joe Paterno, with a few vague details about what he may have known about allegations of sexual abuse by one of his coaches, it is becoming clear there may be much more.
There are now two allegations by men who say they were sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky, who also say they reported their abuse to the legendary coach in the 1970s.
One of those allegations was made public in a court order related to a lawsuit Penn State University filed against its former insurer over who should have to pay settlements to the more than 30 men who have come forward as victims of Sandusky. The victim was not identified, and the details come from a deposition that is sealed.
The other has spoken to CNN, in great detail, explaining how he was a troubled young kid in 1971 when he was raped in a Penn State bathroom by Jerry Sandusky. Then, he says, his complaint about it was ignored by Paterno....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/06/us/jerry-sandusky-victims-paterno-penn-state/index.html
Penn State settlements covered 1971 Sandusky abuse claim
The Associated Press May 9, 2016
Penn State’s legal settlements with Jerry Sandusky’s accusers cover alleged abuse dating to 1971, which was 40 years before his arrest, the university said Sunday, providing the first confirmation of the time frame of abuse claims that have led to big payouts.
The disclosure came as Penn State President Eric Barron decried newly revealed allegations that former football coach Joe Paterno was told in 1976 that Sandusky had sexually abused a child and that two assistant coaches witnessed either inappropriate or sexual contact in the late 1980s. Paterno, who died in 2012, had said the first time he had received a complaint against Sandusky was in 2001.
Barron said the accusations were unsubstantiated, and suggested that the university is being subjected unfairly to what he called rumor and innuendo.
Responding to questions about the president’s statement and claims against the school, university spokesman Lawrence Lokman told The Associated Press he could confirm that the earliest year of alleged abuse covered in Penn State’s settlements is 1971.
Sandusky graduated from Penn State in 1965 and returned as a full-time defensive coach in 1969.
The university has paid out more than $90 million to settle more than 30 civil claims involving Sandusky, now 72 and serving a lengthy prison sentence for the sexual abuse of 10 children. But few details have been provided on the payouts by either the school or lawyers for those who said they were Sandusky’s victims even before the period covered by the criminal investigation.
The allegations about Paterno and the assistant coaches were cited in a ruling last week by Philadelphia Judge Gary Glazer in litigation between an insurance company and Penn State over how much of the settlement costs the school must bear.
The insurers cited an allegation that a boy had told the longtime Penn State football coach in 1976 that he had been molested by Sandusky. The court document also cited statements, from those claiming they had been Sandusky’s victims, that two unidentified assistant coaches had said they witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and children in the late 1980s....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/05/08/penn-state-settlements-jerry-sandusky-joe-paterno/84125254/
USA TODAY Sports May 7, 2016
A court order claims that former Penn State football coach knew of sexual abuse allegations as early as 1976. USA TODAY Sports
A second report has surfaced that late Penn State coach Joe Paterno was informed in the 1970s of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of children.
In a CNN report released Friday, a man described as a troubled young kid in 1971 said he was raped by Sandusky in a Penn State bathroom. Then, he told CNN, Paterno ignored his complaint about it.
Also Friday, NBC Sports reported that “as many as six” Penn State assistant coaches witnessed abusive acts by Sandusky, dating to the 1970s.
The latest allegations come one day after PennLive reported that Paterno was allegedly told in 1976 about an accusation of child sexual abuse by Sandusky.
The PennLive report cites a court order connected to an insurance coverage case involving Penn State. The order includes a line that one of the school’s insurers has claimed “in 1976, a child allegedly reported to PSU’s Head Coach Joseph Paterno that he (the child) was sexually molested by Sandusky.” The filing also cites incidents of other assistant football coaches witnessing “inappropriate contact between Sandusky and unidentified children.”
Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse in June 2012, five months after Paterno’s death, and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison. Lawyers for Sandusky, 72, have been in court this week attempting to overturn his conviction.
In CNN's report Friday, the accuser — who was 15 at the time of the alleged attack in 1971 — said he has never before spoken publicly about the abuse but that he did confide in a friend in the 1970s. That friend verified the story, CNN says....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/05/06/penn-state-jerry-sandusky-child-sex-abuse-1970s-assistant-coaches-joe-paterno/84046678/
Sandusky victim: Joe Paterno told me to drop abuse accusation
By Sara Ganim, CNN Sun May 8, 2016
After four years of feuding over the legacy of Joe Paterno, with a few vague details about what he may have known about allegations of sexual abuse by one of his coaches, it is becoming clear there may be much more.
There are now two allegations by men who say they were sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky, who also say they reported their abuse to the legendary coach in the 1970s.
One of those allegations was made public in a court order related to a lawsuit Penn State University filed against its former insurer over who should have to pay settlements to the more than 30 men who have come forward as victims of Sandusky. The victim was not identified, and the details come from a deposition that is sealed.
The other has spoken to CNN, in great detail, explaining how he was a troubled young kid in 1971 when he was raped in a Penn State bathroom by Jerry Sandusky. Then, he says, his complaint about it was ignored by Paterno....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/06/us/jerry-sandusky-victims-paterno-penn-state/index.html
Penn State settlements covered 1971 Sandusky abuse claim
The Associated Press May 9, 2016
Penn State’s legal settlements with Jerry Sandusky’s accusers cover alleged abuse dating to 1971, which was 40 years before his arrest, the university said Sunday, providing the first confirmation of the time frame of abuse claims that have led to big payouts.
The disclosure came as Penn State President Eric Barron decried newly revealed allegations that former football coach Joe Paterno was told in 1976 that Sandusky had sexually abused a child and that two assistant coaches witnessed either inappropriate or sexual contact in the late 1980s. Paterno, who died in 2012, had said the first time he had received a complaint against Sandusky was in 2001.
Barron said the accusations were unsubstantiated, and suggested that the university is being subjected unfairly to what he called rumor and innuendo.
Responding to questions about the president’s statement and claims against the school, university spokesman Lawrence Lokman told The Associated Press he could confirm that the earliest year of alleged abuse covered in Penn State’s settlements is 1971.
Sandusky graduated from Penn State in 1965 and returned as a full-time defensive coach in 1969.
The university has paid out more than $90 million to settle more than 30 civil claims involving Sandusky, now 72 and serving a lengthy prison sentence for the sexual abuse of 10 children. But few details have been provided on the payouts by either the school or lawyers for those who said they were Sandusky’s victims even before the period covered by the criminal investigation.
The allegations about Paterno and the assistant coaches were cited in a ruling last week by Philadelphia Judge Gary Glazer in litigation between an insurance company and Penn State over how much of the settlement costs the school must bear.
The insurers cited an allegation that a boy had told the longtime Penn State football coach in 1976 that he had been molested by Sandusky. The court document also cited statements, from those claiming they had been Sandusky’s victims, that two unidentified assistant coaches had said they witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and children in the late 1980s....
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/05/08/penn-state-settlements-jerry-sandusky-joe-paterno/84125254/
Monday, May 2, 2016
Wife of football coach Jerry Sandusky appears at sex abuse appeal hearing to support her husband
Wife of football coach Jerry Sandusky appears at sex abuse appeal hearing to support her pedophile husband despite the fact that he molested their adopted son
Jerry Sandusky appeared in a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania courtroom on Monday at an appeals hearing
The convicted pedophile is attempting to prove he was wrongly convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse
Dottie Sandusky, the wife of the convicted pedophile, turned up to support him despite the fact that he sexually abused their adopted son
She has disowned their adopted son Matthew, now 36, who detailed the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Sandusky
Sandusky is serving a serving a 30- to 60-year sentence at Greene State prison for the abuse of 10 boys
He claims the proceedings violated his constitutional rights, prosecutors engaged in misconduct and his attorneys were ineffective during his trial
By Associated Press 2 May 2016
Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky appeared in a courtroom near his State College home on Monday as he continues to pursue appeals of his 45-count conviction for child sexual abuse.
Judge John Cleland is set to hear arguments from prosecutors and Sandusky's attorneys as the 72-year-old state prison inmate seeks a hearing in which he can present evidence that supports his claim that he was wrongly convicted.
Also in court on Monday was Dottie Sandusky, the wife of the convicted pedophile who turned up to support him despite the fact that he sexually abused their adopted son.....
Sandusky, 71, was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys, some on campus. He has maintained his innocence, acknowledging he showered with boys but saying he didn't abuse them....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3568919/Sandusky-court-molestation-case-appeal-hearing.html
Jerry Sandusky appeared in a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania courtroom on Monday at an appeals hearing
The convicted pedophile is attempting to prove he was wrongly convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse
Dottie Sandusky, the wife of the convicted pedophile, turned up to support him despite the fact that he sexually abused their adopted son
She has disowned their adopted son Matthew, now 36, who detailed the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Sandusky
Sandusky is serving a serving a 30- to 60-year sentence at Greene State prison for the abuse of 10 boys
He claims the proceedings violated his constitutional rights, prosecutors engaged in misconduct and his attorneys were ineffective during his trial
By Associated Press 2 May 2016
Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky appeared in a courtroom near his State College home on Monday as he continues to pursue appeals of his 45-count conviction for child sexual abuse.
Judge John Cleland is set to hear arguments from prosecutors and Sandusky's attorneys as the 72-year-old state prison inmate seeks a hearing in which he can present evidence that supports his claim that he was wrongly convicted.
Also in court on Monday was Dottie Sandusky, the wife of the convicted pedophile who turned up to support him despite the fact that he sexually abused their adopted son.....
Sandusky, 71, was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys, some on campus. He has maintained his innocence, acknowledging he showered with boys but saying he didn't abuse them....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3568919/Sandusky-court-molestation-case-appeal-hearing.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)