Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Chimps are human but unborn babies are not?

Animal rights activists and leading experts in several biological fields including primatology and anthropology are joining forces to uphold a case going before an Austrian court which seeks a declaration of `human status' for a 26 year old chimpanzee.

According to media reports, the chimpanzee known as Hiasl was barely one year old in 1982 when he was illegally smuggled out of his birth place of Sierra Leone and into Austria to be used, along with several other chimps, for AIDS and hepatitis research at a laboratory near Vienna. Customs officials discovered Hiasl and rerouted him to an animal sanctuary where he resided until this year.

The sanctuary now faces bankruptcy and Hiasl's future is once again uncertain with the possibility that he may be shipped to the original lab that he was destined for.

Spearheaded by the efforts of Dr. Martin Balluch, president of Austria's animal rights organization, activists are campaigning to protect Hiasl from possibly being sent back to the lab by working to have a legal guardian appointed over him. However, since only humans have the right to a legal guardian, they must first convince the court that the chimpanzee, is in fact, `human'.

And that is exactly what they intend to do. With the help of testimony from individuals like `primate rights' activist, Jane Goodall and wild chimp expert Volker Sommer, Hiasl's entourage intends to argue several points to demonstrate his humanity and his right to the subsequent privileges.

Some of the arguments that they intend to use include the argument that a chimpanzee's DNA is approximately 97% akin to human DNA. They will argue that recent research shows that primates have been known to hunt with home-made spears. The fact that Hiasl can recognize himself in the mirror and plays hide-and-seek with sanctuary visitors will also be used as proof of his humanity.

Acting within a similar mindset in 1999, New Zealand declared apes - and all the subspecies of primates - `non-human huminoids' thereby granting them immunity from maltreatment, slavery, torture, death and extinction.

Evolutionary enthusiast and professor at University College London, Sommer claims, "It's untenable to talk of dividing humans and humanoid apes because there are no clear-cut criteria - neither biological, nor mental, nor social."

A British woman named Paula Stibbe has applied to be Hiasl's legal guardian. She said, "He is a colourful character with lots of energy. The least we can do for him is give him ... a future in society."

The hearing is currently stalled while the judge, Barbara Bartl, an animal rights supporter herself, determines if the claims of `asylum status' for the ape have been legitimately established.

The implications of this case will be wide-spread and the unprecedented proceedings and subsequent verdict will be closely monitored around the globe.

Pro-life observers note the irony that chimps may be declared "human" while unborn real humans are denied legal human status and thereby over 50 million are killed each, even up to full term. Infanticide is also common in certain nations and often not punished. In China, government agents carry out brutal killings of newborns of parents who were not authorized to have another child.

Source



Europe Shariatized

German case just the tip of the iceberg. Post below from News & Views -- which see for links

The husband routinely beat his 26-year-old German-born wife, mother of their two young children, and threatened to kill her when the court ordered him to move out of their apartment in Hamburg. The police were called repeatedly to intervene. The wife wanted a quick divorce-without waiting a year after separation, as mandated by German law-arguing that that the abuse and death threats she suffered easily fulfilled the "hardship" criteria required for an accelerated decree absolute. The judge-a woman by the name of Christa Datz-Winter-refused, however, arguing that the Kuran allows the husband to beat his wife and that the couple's Moroccan origin must be taken into account in the case.

They both come from a cultural milieu, Her Honor wrote, in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives-and the Kuran sanctions such treatment. "The [husband's] exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfill the hardship criteria as defined by Paragraph 1565" of German federal law, the judge's letter said. [emphasis added] The judge further suggested that the wife's Western lifestyle would give her husband grounds to claim his honor had been compromised. The reports in German and English do not state this, but Turkish papers have reported that the judge made specific reference to Sura 4, which contains the infamous Verse 34:

Men have the authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.

The wife's lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, could not believe her eyes: a German judge was invoking Kuran in a German legal case to assert the husband's "right to castigate" his wife. The meaning was clear: "the husband can beat his wife," Becker-Rojczyk commented. She decided to go public with the case last Tuesday because the judge was still on the bench, two months after the controversial verdict was handed down. The judge was subsequently removed from the case, but not from the bench.

A spokesman for the court, Bernhard Olp, said the judge did not intend to suggest that violence in a marriage is acceptable, or that the Kuran supersedes German law. "The ruling is not justifiable, but the judge herself cannot explain it at this moment," he said. But according to Spiegel Online this was not the first time that German courts have used "cultural background" to inform their verdicts. Christa Stolle of the women's rights organization Terre des Femmes said that in cases of marital violence there have been a number of cases where the perpetrator's culture of origin has been considered as a mitigating circumstance.

Of some 25 million Muslims in Western Europe, the majority already consider themselves autonomous, a community justifiably opposed to the decadent host society of infidels. They already demand the adoption of sharia within segregated Muslim communities, which but one step that leads to the imposition of sharia on the society as a whole. Swedish courts are already introducing sharia principles into civil cases. An Iranian-born man divorcing his Iranian-born wife was ordered by the high court in the city of Halmestad to pay Mahr, Islamic dowry ordained by the Kuran as part of the Islamic marriage contract.

As our magazine readers may recall, Europe's elite class is ready for further surrenders. Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner-a Christian Democrat-sees the demand for sharia as perfectly legitimate, and argues that it could be introduced "by democratic means." Muslims have a right to follow the commands of their religion, he says, even if the exercise of that right included some "dissenting rules of behavior":

sharia-could-come-via-democracy-dutch-minister" target=_blankIt is a sure certainty for me: if two thirds of all Netherlanders tomorrow would want to introduce sharia, then this possibility must exist. Could you block this legally? It would also be a scandal to say "this isn't allowed"! The majority counts. That is the essence of democracy.

The same "essence" was reiterated in similar terms last July by Jens Orback, the Swedish Integration [sic] Minister, who declared in a radio debate on Channel P1, "We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us."

To all forward-looking Europeans it must be a welcome sign that continental courts are catching up with the leader in sharia compliance, Great Britain. A key tenet of sharia is that non-Muslims cannot try Muslims. Peter Beaumont, QC, senior circuit judge at London's Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, accepts the commandment not only in civil, but also in criminal cases. He banned Jews and Hindus-and anyone married to one-from serving on the jury in the trial of Abdullah el-Faisal, accused of soliciting the murder of "unbelievers." "For obvious reasons," he said, "members of the jury of the Jewish or Hindu faith should reveal themselves, even if they are married to Jewish or Hindu women, because they are not fit to arbitrate in this case." One can only speculate what the reaction would be if equally "obvious reasons" were invoked in an attempt to exclude Muslims from a trial of an alleged "Islamophobe."

Here at home, The New York Times had a bone to pick with the German judge mainly because of her suggestion that Islam justified violence against women. It stated matter-of-factly, "While the verse cited by Judge Datz-Winter does say husbands may beat their wives for being disobedient-an interpretation embraced by fundamentalists- mainstream Muslims have long rejected wife-beating as a medieval relic."

In reality "mainstream Muslims" do nothing of the sort. New York Times' claim notwithstanding, the original sources for "true" Islam-the Kuran and Hadith-provide ample and detailed evidence on Islamic theory and the sources of Shari'a practice that remains in force all over the Islamic world today. According to orthodox Islamic tradition, the verse invoked by the German judge (4:34) was revealed in connection with a woman who complained to Mohammad that her husband had hit her on the face, which was still bruised. At first he told her to get even with him, but then added, "Wait until I think about it." The revelation duly followed, after which he said: "We wanted one thing but Allah wanted another, and what Allah wanted is best." Qatari Sheikh Walid bin Hadi explains that every man is his own judge when using violence: "The Prophet said: Do not ask a husband why he beats his wife." The scholars at the most respected institution of Islamic learning, Cairo's Azhar University, further explain:

If admonishing and sexual desertion fail to bring forth results and the woman is of a cold and stubborn type, the Qur'an bestows on man the right to straighten her out by way of punishment and beating, provided he does not break her bones nor shed blood. Many a wife belongs to this querulous type and requires this sort of punishment to bring her to her senses!

Physical violence against one's wife, far from being Haram, remains divinely ordained and practically advised in modern Islam. "Take in thine hand a branch and smite therewith and break not thine oath," the Kuran commands. Muslim propagators in the West "explain" that the Islamic teaching and practice is in line with the latest achievements of clinical psychology: it is not only correct, but positively beneficial to them because "women's rebelliousness (nushuz) is a medical condition" based either on her masochistic delight in being beaten and tortured, or sadistic desire to hurt and dominate her husband. Either way,

Such a woman has no remedy except removing her spikes and destroying her weapon by which she dominates. This weapon of the woman is her femininity. But the other woman who delights in submission and being beaten, then beating is her remedy. So the Qur'anic command: `banish them to their couches, and beat them' agrees with the latest psychological findings in understanding the rebellious woman. This is one of the scientific miracles of the Qur'an, because it sums up volumes of the science of psychology about rebellious women.

According to Allah's commandment to men (Kuran 2:223), "Your wives are as a soil to be cultivated unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will." Therefore "the righteous women are devoutly obedient." Those that are not inhabit the nether regions of hell. Muhammad has stated that most of those who enter hell are women, not men. Contemporary Azhar scholars of Egypt agree: "Oh, assembly of women, give charity, even from your jewelry, for you (comprise) the majority of the inhabitants of hell in the day of resurrection." In the same spirit, courts in Muslim countries, to mention a particularly egregious legal practice, routinely sentence raped women to death for "adultery," usually by stoning, because they follow the sharia that mandates this punishment.

To the outright divine command of every wife's obedience to her husband, Muhammad has added a few comments of his own. When asked who among women is the best, he replied: "She who gives pleasure to him (husband) when he looks, obeys him when he bids, and who does not oppose him regarding herself and her riches fearing his displeasure." Even in basic necessities the needs of the husband take precedence: "You shall give her food when you have taken your food, you shall clothe her when you have clothed yourself, you shall not slap her on the face, nor revile (her), nor leave (her) alone, except within the house." The husband's sexual needs have to be satisfied immediately: "When a man calls his wife to his bed, and she does not respond, the One Who is in the heaven is displeased with her until he is pleased with her."

Such treatment of women might be expected to make Islam abhorrent within the cultural milieu epitomized by the equal-rights obsessed European Union and the neofeminist New York Times, but this has not happened. There is a reason for this. It is the refusal of Islam to accept the wife as her husband's closest and inseparable loving partner and companion. Islam therefore challenges Christian marriage in principle and in practice. Muslim teaching on marriage and the family, though "conservative" about "patriarchy," denies the traditional Christian concept of matrimony. Islam is therefore an "objective" ally of postmodernity, a few beatings here and a few rapes there notwithstanding.

"I can only say, Good night, Germany," says Ronald Pofalla, general secretary of Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Union, of Frau Datz-Winter's ruling. Unless the madness is checked it will be good night to us all well before this century is over.



"Human Rights" stupidity in Australia

In another outstanding victory for the civil rights lobby, two HIV-positive men in Victoria and South Australia were permitted to run wild by health officials, passing on their infection to as many sexual partners as they could, because their right to privacy was deemed paramount. What is apparent from the court appearances of both men is that senior health authorities in Victoria and SA made a value judgment between the lethal activities of their clients and the risk they posed to the community and appear to have preferred to protect the men's privacy even though their behaviour risked the health of their sexual conquests, possibly numbering more than 100.

Although a psychiatrist who examined Michael Neal, the Melbourne man accused of deliberately spreading HIV, warned the Victorian Department of Human Services three years ago Neal was the "most evil man I have seen in 20 years" who "enjoys infecting men with HIV", police were not notified. Neal was committed on March 29 to stand trial on 106 charges including intentionally spreading HIV, attempting to intentionally spread a very serious disease, rape and child pornography. He reserved his plea.

During his committal hearing, Melbourne Magistrates Court was told the health department had been contacted nine times in four years by doctors and concerned gay men who alleged the 48-year-old was intent on "breeding" the deadly disease. But even though Neal had told the DHS during his first meeting with its officers that he was having unprotected sex with many men and only sometimes disclosed his HIV status, police were not notified of the case until February last year.

Neal, who wore a genital attachment knowing it would cause bleeding during intercourse, increasing the chances of HIV transmission, told nurses his sex life was his own and he had no intention of following their orders to stop having unprotected sex. According to a witness at Neal's committal hearing, Neal hosted a "conversion party" at which a 15-year-old boy was injected with methamphetamine and "bred" (infected with HIV) by about 15 HIV-positive men who had sex with him.

Instead of notifying police of his activities, the health officers went through a four-stage process with Neal, first offering him counselling, education and support, then referring the allegations against him to an internal HIV advisory panel, then issuing a letter of warning and finally issuing orders that restricted Neal's sexual behaviour and required him to make contact with a department officer each day. When Neal was told he must either disclose his HIV status to his partners or wear a condom, Neal demanded the department pay for Viagra "due to his erectile dysfunction when using condoms", the court was told.

The matter was referred to Melbourne's sexual crimes squad in February last year although a full year earlier a former partner had told authorities Neal was boasting of infecting people with HIV and claimed to have infected "approximately 75 people and remained in a relationship with them until they tested positive". Even then, health officials refused to hand over files to the police and they had to subpoena medical notes and compel the doctors to give evidence against Neal in court.

In the South Australian case, health officials were warned two years go that Stuart McDonald was knowingly spreading HIV. McDonald may have deliberately infected as many as a dozen men with the disease since moving to Adelaide about eight years ago but it was not until last month that he was ordered to take a psychiatric examination and stop having unprotected sex and advertising for sex on the internet.

While doctor-patient confidentiality must be protected, it should not take precedence over the greater public good. This is where the civil rights lobby loses the plot every time - from defending the right of alleged terrorists to have protected communications, to the right of indigenous men to brutalise women and children in the name of traditional culture. In living memory, sufferers of infectious diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever and tuberculosis have been quarantined to reduce the risk of infection to the wider community. Past generations protected themselves against infection by taking the appropriate precautions available at the time - our generation must do the same.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.


For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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