Leaked UN report details French soldiers’ abuse against African boys

A damning UN report about how French soldiers raped and sodomized starving and homeless boys in the Central African Republic, some as young as nine, has been leaked to the Guardian, and the UN official who blew the whistle is facing dismissal.

French peacekeeping troops were supposed to be protecting children at a center for internally displaced people at M’Poko Airport in CAR’s capital Bangui, when the abuse reportedly took place between December 2013 and June 2014. It was at a time when the UN’s mission at the country, MINUSCA, was in the process of being set up.

An internal investigation was ordered by the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights (UNHCR), after reports on the ground of sexual abuse of children displaced by the conflict.
A member of staff from the high commissioner of human rights and a specialist from UNICEF interviewed the children between May and June last year. Some of the boys were able to give good descriptions of individual soldiers who abused them.

the confidential UN report entitled Sexual Abuse on Children by International Armed Forces, French authorities traveled to Bangui to investigate the allegations.

A French judicial source said that the prosecutor’s office had received the UN report in July 2014 and that a preliminary investigation had been launched.

“A preliminary investigation has been opened by the Paris prosecutor since July 21, 2014. The investigation is ongoing,” he said, as quoted by Reuters.

The UN also confirmed Monday that it had given an unredacted report to the French authorities on the alleged abuse of children by French soldiers in CAR.

“The unedited version was, by a staff member's own admission, provided unofficially by that staff member to the French authorities in late July, prior to even providing it to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' (OHCHR) senior management,” the spokesman for the UN Secretary-General said in a statement.

The regular sex abuse by peacekeeping personnel uncovered here and the United Nations’ appalling disregard for victims are stomach-turning, but the awful truth is that this isn’t uncommon. The UN’s instinctive response to sexual violence in its ranks – ignore, deny, cover up, dissemble – must be subjected to a truly independent commission of inquiry with total access, top to bottom, and full subpoena power,” she said.

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Last month, Mr Kompass was accused of leaking a confidential UN report and breaching protocols.

Kompass was dismissed last week as director of field operations and is now under investigation by the UN office for internal oversight service (OIOS). One senior UN official even said that “it was his [Kompass’s] duty to know and comply” with UN protocols on confidential documents.

Bea Edwards from the US based Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection and advocacy organization, blasted the UN for what is little more than witch-hunt against someone who sought to protect children.

“We have represented many whistleblowers in the UN system over the years and in general the more serious the disclosure they make the more ferocious the retaliation. Despite the official rhetoric, there is very little commitment at the top of the organization to protect whistleblowers and a strong tendency to politicize every issue no matter how urgent.”

France’s Operation Sangaris in CAR began in December 2013. It is now being wound down as Paris hands over security to an 8,500-strong UN peacekeeping force deployed to contain the deadly conflict.

baltimore live

Protests and rallies continue in Baltimore on whats now the 15th consecutive day of actions. The tone has changed since yesterday’s announcement that 6 of the officers involved in Freddie Gray’s murder and cover up will face multiple charges, yet the demand is the same. The systemic abuse of the poor and predominately black communities in Baltimore at the hands of the Baltimore police and judicial systems must end today.



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WikiLeaks’ Anonymous Leak Submission Website Relaunched after 6 years

Expect exposure of confidential news pieces and government/corporate classified documents every now and then because WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group has re-launched its anonymous leak submission

WikiLeaks, the famous whistle blowing website, has opened its systems again for the public.

The site has remained in headlines for long previously for anonymously submitting sensitive information. Around four and a half years back this site shutdown for making sensitive and classified information public.

On Friday, WikiLeaks said that it has currently launched a beta version of the new system. Eventually it will allow sources upload documents, videos and emails that are usually kept concealed by government agencies and companies. It will run on Tor, which is a free software used to route Internet traffic via a separate network for hiding the location and identity of the user. It also cannot track the identity of the leaker, says WikiLeaks.

The core of WikiLeaks’ mission has been publishing anonymous leaks since its foundation in 2006. WikiLeaks was famously used by U.S Army Private Chelsea (previously Bradley) Manning for leaking confidential documents and videos regarding U.S Army’s military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Manning was later arrested and imprisoned for violating the U.S Espionage Act.

A group of WikiLeaks staffers became unhappy with the way the organization was being led and seized the control of its system in late 2010. WikiLeaks then promised to bounce back with its new version however, it has taken years. This delay, in part, can be attributed to the organization’s financial woes and its leader Julian Assange’s legal and political troubles.

Despite taking down its system of document and videos submissions, WikiLeaks continuously published documents but its impact waned when whistleblowing was shifted to news outlets directly. Such as, a vast collection of classified documents regarding NSA surveillance tactics was leaked by Edward Snowden, ex-NSA contractor.

By re-launching its portal, WikiLeaks hopes to regain the same momentum it had before and reach more prospective leakers.

Ruffalo Just Called Out Marvel Over Their Lack of Black Widow Merchandising

When it comes to being an all around stand-up guy, Mark Ruffalo has a whole lot of previous experience. When he isn't playing what seems like the nicest version of Bruce Banner that is humanly possible, he's usually to be found working tirelessly on behalf of his own charity, Water Defense, tweeting about important and often over-looked issues, or answering the kind of sexist questions that'd normally be directed at his female co-stars.

It's a Rare Thing to See an Actor Stand Up to Their Studio Like Tha and, accordingly, why it's such a big deal to see Ruffalo taking a stand for a cause he obviously believes in, especially when it means calling out the company that pays him large amounts of money to play a giant green rage monster.

After all, there are an awful lot of people out there who feel the same way as Ruffalo - many of them with a platform to speak out about it - who feel that they can't, because of the potential damage to their careers. Which, in itself, is part of the problem.

this isn't actually about there not being enough Black Widow lunchboxes, or too few Scarlet Witch LEGO mini-figures. It's about (an often unintentional) institutional sexism present in almost every aspect of society - including the world of toys and merchandising. Sexism which, both overtly and more subtly, places women - and especially young girls - in the position of being 'secondary' consumers, with their legitimacy as fans seemingly being questioned by groups who are simultaneously trying to sell them something.

Which is a pretty fundamental problem, one which, as has been talked about at length, all over the internet, isn't going to go away without a whole lot of people making a whole lot of brave decisions to change the way they do business - and all of us being willing to take a closer look at the decisions, judgments and exclusions that both we and others are making all the time, often without realizing it.