A Christian mother trying to flee Sudan for the United States was stopped at the airport following a tip-off from her own brother.
Meriam Ibrahim spent months on death row on charges of apostasy – the crime of abandoning or disrespecting Islam – before she was freed Monday following international outcry. Amid continuing fears over her safety, she planned to fly to the United States with her husband — who is a naturalized American citizen.
But this plan failed at the last minute when Ibrahim was re-arrested at the airport by agents from Sudan’s shadowy security service. She was transferred to police custody where her lawyer told NBC News she remained early Thursday.
Authorities said she had been stopped because her travel documents were illegitimate. But in an interview with a Sudanese newspaper, her brother claimed he tipped off police that she had been “kidnapped” by her husband who planned to take her to the U.S. against her will.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has found that Christians are persecuted in more places today than any other religious group, suffering formal or informal harassment in three-quarters of the world’s countries.
By Charlotte Allen
A 27-year-old Sudanese woman named Meriam Ibrahim seemed likely to become a 21st-century Christian martyr in May when she was sentenced to death by hanging because of her faith. Then this week Ms. Ibrahim was saved when a court overturned her conviction for apostasy from Islam—her father was a Muslim, and under Islamic law she is automatically a Muslim too. (She had also been sentenced to public flogging for adultery because her husband, Daniel Wani, is also a Christian, and Islamic law doesn’t recognize marriages between Muslim women and non-Muslim men.) But the day after her release on Monday, Ms. Ibrahim was arrested again. While the Associated Press reported Thursday that she had again been released Thursday, her future remained uncertain.
Her story is harrowing. Ms. Ibrahim was eight months pregnant with her second child when she was convicted in a Khartoum court on April 30 under the Islamic Shariah law that has governed Sudan since 1989. On May 27, while in prison awaiting execution, Ms. Ibrahim gave birth to her daughter, Maya. Mr. Wani reported that his wife was shackled to the floor during labor. Their year-and-a-half-old son, Martin, had been jailed along with her.
Ms. Ibrahim was re-arrested on Tuesday by a government security force as she, Mr. Wani and their two young children tried to leave Sudan for the U.S. The Sudanese-born Mr. Wani has been an American citizen since 2005. The new charges against Ms. Ibrahim—which are reported to carry penalties of up to seven years in prison—consist of falsifying the family’s travel documents, which were issued by the embassy of South Sudan, the largely Christian territory that seceded from overwhelmingly Muslim Sudan in 2011 after a decades-long civil war. Mr. Wani hails from what is now South Sudan.
Ms. Ibrahim’s story bears uncanny parallels to another Christian story involving young African mothers who did become Christian martyrs, during the early third century: the story of Felicitas and Perpetua, executed for their faith in the Roman port city of Carthage in today’s Tunisia. …
MASSACHUSETTS – Police militarization has reached an all-time low in Massachusetts. Not only are they armored and armed as well as any military unit in Afghanistan, they apparently now are not held accountable for their actions. The ACLU of Massachusetts claims a weakness in the Massachusetts public record laws.
Recent tweet by ALCUM
According to articles from the Boston Globe and Washington Post, various police forces are combining into groups called law enforcement councils, or LECs.
According to Boston.Com, the ACLU requested certain records concerning the police organizations:
As part of an effort to document regional policing operations, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Massachusetts (“ACLUM”) requested documents concerning NEMLEC’s SWAT Team and RRT in July 2012. The request sought NEMLEC’s training materials, incident reports, deployment statistics, guidelines, procurement records, budgets, agreements with other agencies and documents relating to the structure of the SWAT team and RRT.
The North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC, refused on the grounds that they are a private, non-profit 501(c)3 group that is not required to produce records for the public.
The Washington Post article stated:
Let’s be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they’ve incorporated, they’re immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state’s residents aren’t permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they’re used for, what sort of training they get or who they’re primarily used against.
In the 2005 ruling of Gonzales v. Castle Rock, the Supreme Court ruled that police are not Constitutionally obligated to protect you even to enforce a restraining order.
A follow-up tweet by the ACLUM concerning the militarization of Mass. police.
An oil tanker rollover has triggered a closure of Interstate 17 northbound in New River that is expected to last most of Thursday, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.
Drivers traveling from Phoenix to northern Arizona destinations such as Flagstaff will need to use alternate routes Thursday through Prescott or Payson and plan for extended travel times.
The Prescott route involves using US 60 from the Phoenix area to Wickenburg, where drivers will turn onto US 93 until reaching State Route 89. Once taking SR 89 into Prescott, drivers can take SR 69 to Dewey, and then SR 169 to return to I-17.
The Payson route involves taking SR 87 from the Mesa or Fountain Hills area. About 20 miles north of Payson, drivers will turn northwest on SR 260 to return to I-17 in Camp Verde. Drivers should expect extra traffic on either of these alternate routes today due to the I-17 closure.
There is no estimated time to reopen northbound lanes of I-17 while a hazardous materials crew responds to the tanker rollover. Southbound lanes of I-17 are unaffected and remain open.
Marine Sgt. Andrew P. Tahmooressi in 2012. (Facebook) – Marine Corp Times
(June 18) – As veteran Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi nears three months in a Mexican prison, a Marine Corps three-star general says the Marine Corps is standing by to help him.
Tahmooressi, who left active duty in 2012, was arrested by Mexican officials March 31 after crossing the border at San Ysidro with guns and ammunition in his truck in what he claims was an innocent mistake. His plight, reported by a number of media outlets, has spurred a massive wave of public support.
In a letter this week to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs Commander Lt. Gen. Robert Milstead said the Corps has limited ability to help Tahmooressi, but was willing to do whatever possible to bring him back.
“I understand … this matter rests appropriately within the U.S. Department of State’s capable hands,” Milstead said. “While it is not within the Marine Corps’ purview to unilaterally intervene in matters involving a foreign government, I assure you that we are prepared to assist as necessary to the greatest extent permissible under law.”
PHOENIX — If anyone received a new driver license and it contains errors, there are some simple steps to take to get a corrected credential. The Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division wants to advise customers who received a redesigned driver license that contains errors to return to any local area Motor Vehicle Division office, email ADOT, or call 602-255-0072 or 800-251-5866.
It is important for anyone receiving the redesigned credential issued after June 16 to verify all of the information contained on the card.
The ADOT Motor Vehicle Division values its customers and continuously strives to provide the best customer service. The agency apologizes for the inconvenience this issue has created for some customers.
On June 16, the ADOT Motor Vehicle Division implemented a new system for processing driver license and identification card applications. The new process provides many safeguards to prevent fraud and counterfeiting of the Arizona credential. The applicant no longer receives the permanent credential at the end of the application process. Instead, a temporary credential is issued. The latest technology has been employed into the production of the temporary and the permanent credential.
In the first week of the new central-issuance process, more than 45,000 credentials were issued.
The ADOT Motor Vehicle Division has taken several steps to identify the cause of the technical problem and to make immediate corrections. Once a customer contacts the agency either by phone or a visit to a local office to notify of an error with their driver license, a corrected, fee-free credential is immediately ordered and mailed. The replacement credential is expected to arrive within five business days from the date reordered.
PHOENIX – New steps are being taken in the Phoenix area this week in efforts to get the attention of wrong-way drivers before they enter a freeway in the wrong direction.
Although Do Not Enter and Wrong Way signs already are in place along freeway off-ramps, new and larger versions of such signs will be installed and studied along the exit ramps at six freeway interchanges, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation. In addition, signs will be placed lower on their posts to test if that could help in alerting confused or impaired wrong-way drivers.
Crews also will be adding pavement markers in the shape of large arrows pointing the right way along the exit ramps. Those pavement markers have reflectors to display the color red as a warning to any drivers going the wrong way on the ramps. The reflectors are already in use as part of the lane markings on freeways.
The decision to enhance wrong-way driver signs and markings and observe their effectiveness follows discussions between ADOT, the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety and the state’s Department of Public Safety.
In recent weeks, the new signs were produced at ADOT’s Sign Shop in Phoenix.
The six interchanges where the wrong-way driver countermeasures are being changed or introduced were identified in an earlier research study as ones with a history of wrong-way vehicle incidents, according to an analysis of 9-1-1 calls made to the Department of Public Safety.
Over the next few days, crews will complete work to add the larger signs and the “wrong-way arrow” pavement markings along 13 off-ramps at the six interchanges, including three exits available to drivers at the Interstate 17 interchange at Carefree Highway (State Route 74).
The changes are being made at the following freeway interchanges:
Interstate 17 and Carefree Highway (State Route 74)
Loop 101 (Agua Fria) and Thunderbird Road
Loop 101 (Agua Fria) and Peoria Avenue
Interstate 10 and Ray Road
Interstate 10 and Wild Horse Pass Boulevard
Interstate 10 and Queen Creek Road (State Route 347)
The larger “Do Not Enter” signs along the ramps are increased in size from 30 by 30 inches to 48 by 48 inches. Beneath them, the new “Wrong Way” signs measure 48 by 36 inches. In an effort to make them even more visible, the bottom of the lower signs will be located three feet from the ground, compared to the seven-foot clearance for wrong-way signs at most of the other state-highway interchanges.
It is not yet known how long the new signs and other changes will be studied before a decision is made about an expansion of the program to other state freeway or highway locations. There are more than 100 traffic interchanges on the Phoenix-area freeway system and more than 475 interchanges along the rest of the state highway system.
ADOT and other public safety agencies work in support of the three E’s of highway safety: engineering, education and enforcement. The sign changes and the addition of the reflective pavement marker wrong-way arrows are examples of near-term engineering steps ADOT can implement and study as part of an overall effort to reduce the risk of wrong-way drivers.
WASHINGTON — A military command that supplies U.S. Navy SEALs with new gear says it wants more shoulder patches emblazoned with “Don’t Tread on Me,” less than a year after a firestorm erupted after it was reported that the longstanding tradition could be ended.
U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command’s contracting office in Virginia Beach, Virginia, quietly announced its intent to buy more patches in a notice to industry published June 3. Companies interested in supplying them must be able to show they can obtain the materials used in numerous kinds of Navy uniforms, including those with desert and woodland patterns. The U.S. flag will have seven stripes that can be seen using infrared equipment, the command said.
The notice’s publication follows a controversy last year in which it was reported that Navy SEALs were no longer allowed to wear the “Don’t Tread on Me” logo, also known as the first First Navy Jack. Flown on U.S. vessels, the flag depicts a rattlesnake over red and white stripes.
Navy personnel closely associate the logo with the global war on terrorism because then-Navy Secretary Gordon England authorized it on May 31, 2002, as the official jack, or maritime flag, for the Navy for the duration of the global war on terrorism. The entire Navy began flying the Navy Jack on Sept. 11, 2002, the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It has been widely worn on the left shoulder by sailors deployed in war zones since then, including SEALs.
At 18:00 on Monday evening the Flagstaff Fire Department responded all 7 units and a Battalion Chief to a residential house fire in the 5800 block of Abbey road. First arriving units reported heavy fire from the residence. An initial exterior attack was immediately initiated with heavy application of water and foam.
Due to the complexity of the fire and the potential for fire spread into the adjacent urban interface, other partnering agencies were called for assistance. The US Forest Service responded to the scene to assist in extinguishing small spot fires, caused from burning embers, in the wooded area near the home.
FLAGSTAFF – On June 24, 2014 at approximately 1115 hrs., two black male subjects entered the Jim Anderson’s Jewelry store at 2300 N. Fourth. The two subjects brandished handguns and attempted to rob the store.
The clerk was armed and responded by shooting towards the assailants. Neither of the assailants were injured and they left the store in a blue impala rental vehicle. The vehicle was located in the neighborhood area on Skyline. A ground search is being conducted at this time.
The two subjects were described as (1) B/M 6-2-6’3 wearing a white shirt and jeans, the second suspect (2) was described as a B/M 5’8-5’9. Both subjects should be considered armed and dangerous and if any observed or contact call the Flagstaff Police Department at 774-1414.
The Flagstaff Police Department is asking for public assistance in locating these two suspects and or any other information which will assist in the investigation of this crime. If you have any information regarding these two suspects or this crime please consider calling Silent Witness at 928 774 6111.
A Christian mother trying to flee Sudan for the United States was stopped at the airport following a tip-off from her own brother.
