More insanity from Afghanistan

Journalist U.S. Had Detained Is Killed - NYTimes.com

Parwez Kambakhsh was convicted of blasphemy for asking questions in a university class about women's rights under Islam. Prosecutors also said he illegally distributed an article he printed off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights. He also allegedly wrote his own comments on the paper.

The case against the 24-year-old Kambakhsh, whose brother has angered Afghan warlords with his own writings, has come to symbolize Afghanistan's slide toward an ultraconservative view on religious and individual freedoms.

Human Rights Watch said Kambakhsh had not committed a crime and called on President Hamid Karzai to pardon him.

''The Supreme Court represented the last hope that Parwez Kambakhsh would receive a fair hearing, but once again justice was denied,'' said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Another insane story from Saudi Arabia

Saudis order 40 lashes for elderly woman for mingling - CNN.com

Iraq's Unspeakable Crime: Mothers Pimping Daughters

She goes by "Hinda," but that's not her real name. That's what she's called by the many Iraqi sex traffickers and pimps who contact her several times a week from across the country. They think she is one of them, a peddler of sexual slaves. Little do they know that the stocky, auburn-haired woman is an undercover human rights activist who has been quietly mapping out their murky underworld since 2006.
That underworld is a place where nefarious female pimps hold sway, where impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters into a sex market that believes females who reach the age of 20 are too old to fetch a good price. The youngest victims, some just 11 and 12, are sold for as much as $30,000, others for as little as $2,000. "The buying and selling of girls in Iraq, it's like the trade in cattle," Hinda says. "I've seen mothers haggle with agents over the price of their daughters."

Read the full story here

Pennsylvania rocked by 'jailing kids for cash' scandal

Judges get kickbacks for sending kids to detention camps

At a friend's sleepover more than a year ago, 14-year-old Phillip Swartley pocketed change from unlocked vehicles in the neighborhood to buy chips and soft drinks. The cops caught him.

Hillary Transue was 15 when she appeared before a judge, accused of mocking a principal on MySpace.

There was no need for an attorney, said Phillip's mother, Amy Swartley, who thought at most, the judge would slap her son with a fine or community service.

But she was shocked to find her eighth-grader handcuffed and shackled in the courtroom and sentenced to a youth detention center. Then, he was shipped to a boarding school for troubled teens for nine months.

"Yes, my son made a mistake, but I didn't think he was going to be taken away from me," said Swartley, a 41-year-old single mother raising two boys in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

CNN does not usually identify minors accused of crimes. But Swartley and others agreed to be named to bring public attention to the issue.

As scandals from Wall Street to Washington roil the public trust, the justice system in Luzerne County, in the heart of Pennsylvania's struggling coal country, has also fallen prey to corruption. The county has been rocked by a kickback scandal involving two elected judges who essentially jailed kids for cash. Many of the children had appeared before judges without a lawyer.

The nonprofit Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia said Phillip is one of at least 5,000 children over the past five years who appeared before former Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella.

McDonald's sucks for not paying this man's medical bills

Daily Kos: McDonald's refuses workers compensation for shooting victim: Be a hero on your own time

Amen - Autobiography of a Nun, by Sister Jesme, alleges sexual abuse and corruption in Kerala’s Catholic Church

Sexual Abuse alleged by former Nun in Kerala, India

The Catholic Church in Kerala, India, which has barely recovered from the Sister Abhaya murder case, allegedly murdered by two priests and a nun, finds itself in another controversy.

52-year-old Sister Jesme, a former nun from Kerala, has blown the
whistle on the alleged sexual abuse that nuns have to face in convents.
Sister Jesme has written a book - Amen - Oru Kanyasthreeyude Atmakatha (Amen  - an autobiography of a nun,) that talks about the sexual harassment that she faced in the convent at the hands of both priests and nuns.

Two-year-old Indian 'marries dog

A two-year-old boy has been "married" to a dog in eastern India to "ward off evil sprits and bad luck".

The "marriage" took place in a village in Jajpur district on Monday.

The "groom", Sagula Munda, was taken to the house of the dog,
called Jyoti, in a highly decorated rickshaw and priests solemnised the
ceremony.

The boy's father said such "marriages" were a tradition and
would help ease the bad omen of the tooth rooted in Sagula's upper gum.

Tribal deity

The "marriage" was in the tribal-dominated Patarpur village.

Like in every Hindu marriage, the priests chanted Sankrit prayers and hymns and there was an accompanying feast.

The boy's father, Sanrumula Munda, said of the wedding: "Tribals not
only in this state but also in neighbouring Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,
observe such practices to keep the evil spirits away."

Arranging "marriages" with dogs kept children protected from ghosts and bad luck, he said.

The parents of Sagula and other local people consider the biological tooth defect a bad omen both for the family and neighbours.

The "bride's" father, Parakrama Munda, said: "This is just a
ceremony to please the tribal deity - in the great epic Mahabharat a
dog helped the Pandavas reach heaven."

He said it was a superstition, like wearing a stone or a talisman.

One attending resident, Dushmant Rout, said the "bride" had
spent a few hours at the "groom's" house "but not inside the room...
she stayed on the verandah".