Police Pay Informant to Frequent Prostitutes

“In a case of first impression, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled last week that state troopers committed “outrageous government conduct” when investigating alleged prostitution at a massage parlor in the Lehigh Valley by giving money to an undercover informant to have sex four times with two different women at the parlor.”

The patron at a massage parlor complained to police when he was offered sexual acts after a massage.  The man declined because he didnt have enough money.  The police made the guy an informant, had him wear a wire and provided him with money to solicit sexual acts from two different women on four separate occasions.

Who thought this was a good idea?  Of all the ways to stop prostitution the police thought providing an informant with money to solicit sex would be the winner? However, genius move on the informant’s part.  This guy couldn’t afford a prostitute on his own so he just hit up the local police for a little extra hooker cash.  Smooth, very smooth.

To make matters worse, the investigator admitted at a trial court hearing that he and the other officers laughed about each episode with each other and the informant; and that, despite his belief probable cause was established just with a defendant’s verbal acquiescence to have sex after the proffer of money, he “instructed the confidential informant to ‘go ahead and have sex’ if he felt ‘comfortable’ as ‘that was part of the crime,’” according to Bender.

Luckily, the Court agrees tat this kin of behavior is unacceptable.  The unanimous panel of Judges John T. Bender and Jack A. Panella and Senior Judge John T.J. Kelly Jr. upheld Lehigh County Common Pleas Judge Robert L. Steinberg’s 2008 order dismissing charges of prostitution and promoting prostitution against defendant Sun Cha Chon. Steinberg found the state police investigating alleged prostitution at Shiatsu Spa committed outrageous government conduct and violated Chon’s constitutional rights to due process.

Shout Out to the First Amendment

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  U.S. Const. amend. I.  Under the First Amendment, regulations that suppress or disadvantage speech on the basis of its content are subject to the most exacting test of scrutiny. 16A Am. Jur. 2d Constitutional Law § 460 (2009).  I just finished writing my appellate brief, which addresses about two First Amendment issues.  First, a teacher, Mr. Smith, in the fictitious state of Gilead applied to have a specialty license plate displaying the message “White Pride Statewide”.  The Governor of the State of Gilead denied the specialty plate application. Mr. Smith alleged that this violated his right to free expression.  Mr. Smith also screened the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation to his advanced U.S. history class. Released in 1915, this film was one of the most successful films of its time, and it received continued acclaim for a new media format, the feature length movie.  The film has also been criticized for its positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan and for its inaccurate and racist portrayal of African Americans.  Mr. Smith was suspended indefinitely for showing the film and claimed that this also violated his First Amendment rights.  Although I don’t agree with the opinions of Mr. Smith, I do believe that he has a right to be able to express them.  So, I want to give a shout out to the First Amendment and say thank you.  Thanks for giving us the ability to create a forum like this one, where we can discuss anything and everything without fear of government suppression, prosecution, or other adverse actions.

*Sparkles*

In the middle of writing a 30 page Appellate Brief and with finals looming around the corner, I dont have much time to myself.  However, I have been making time for these short video clips.  I get a good giggle out of all of the Target Women videos.  They use recent TV commercials and advertisements to show how the media uses stereotypes of women to target women.  I’ve become a big fan of Sarah Haskins thinly veiled sarcastic remarks.  So, happy watching and …. *Sparkles*

The Equality Bill and those lost in the Crossfire.

As evident over the past two weeks, the politics of the sex industry are phenomenal, every one from politicians, non-governmental organizations and “academic specialists” claim they know what is best for the sex workers. If we want to talk about “controlling for gain,” we would be best served to look at the above’s contribution and stronghold over the issue of prostitution. What gets ignored in the decade old feminist and political battle is the actual human rights violations sex workers experience. As noticed, statistics surrounding the sex industry are flimsy, but to be fair, this is true of any underground trade, and it is not solely a problem in Britain, but one experienced by NGOs and governments all over the world. So if this is known, the obvious response would then be to consult sex worker groups, yet the International Union of Sex Workers has not been mentioned, despite the fact that they are a part of the GMB, the largest labour union in the UK with over 600,000 members.

It is demoralising to watch the UK spend thousands of pounds and attempt a 6 month country wide search for trafficking victims in known brothels. The result of which would surely not bring forth too many victims of trafficking. That is like looking for illegal guns, at a gun show. It appears as though this mad search was an attempt to cut down vice crime in the UK before institutionalizing the Equality Bill. It was sex workers who were caught in the crossfire. As reported by Nick Davies, of the 403 people actually arrested in the raids, 230 of them were women.

And the every day issues sex workers face? Abuse and rape by police, denial of access to fair trial rights, arbitrary arrests and gender and racial discrimination. According to a study done by the Sex Workers Project in New York, 16% of indoor and 17% of street based sex workers have reported being sexually abused by police who demand sexual favours. 77% of street based workers said they had experienced arbitrary arrest. Many report that when they attempt to make police reports they are ignored and not able to submit evidence. This sets up a system of impunity that encourages violence against sex workers. It is no coincidence that serial killers often attack sex workers because as one serial killer, Gary Ridgeway explained, he “could get kill as many as [he] wanted to without getting caught.” There are serious issues that face sex workers that the police and politicians could focus on, trafficking is just one of them.

Human rights violations experienced by sex workers is an international problem that is ignored and actively discriminated against by courts of law. In a Supreme Court case in South Africa, S. v. Jordan, the Supreme Court ruled that by working in the sex industry, a sex worker forgoes their human rights. This is a blatant form of discrimination against sex workers that should not be tolerated by the international community. Yet similar cases can be cited in countries around the world, including Britain. While politicians and others continue to battle statistics before implementing the Equality Bill, human rights abuses are systemically affecting sex workers, yet none of these abuses are addressed in the Equality Bill, a bill proposed, lobbied and intended for politicians, academics and NGOs.

Human Rights and Political Changings

One way to keep the UN from talking about a countries human rights violations  is to kick the UN Special Rapportuer on Torture out into your country, Zimbabwe may learn the hard way though that nothing pisses the UN off more than being told off.

Tony Blair wants to be president of the EU, or as Cameron refers to the job, he wants to be “Charmanic.” Does the president of the EU really do anything of importance and if Blair didn’t have the stamina to stand up to America as the PM for Britain, is he really the strongest person for the job that the EU has to offer?  Should make things easy for America if he gets it.

Kuwait has done it again! The high court ruled yesterday that women lawmakers do not have to wear the hijab  if they don’t want to. This court really tickles me.

And finally, the UN Report:Protecting of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism, special Rapporteur Mr. Martin SCHEININ said that women, bi-sexual, lesbian, gay, inter-sex and transgendered people have  been hurt a ton by counter-terrorism. The report mostly highlights abuses experienced by women, but here is the radical part. The report then goes to give a bigger and more inclusive definition of what being a woman means than any before it.

Gender is not synonymous with women but rather encompasses the social constructions that underlie how women’s and men’s roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are defined and understood. This report will therefore identify the gendered impact of counter-terrorism measures both on women and men, as well as the rights of persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. As a social construct, gender is also informed by, and intersects with, various other means by which roles, functions and responsibilities are perceived and practiced, such as race, ethnicity, culture, religion and class. Consequently, gender is not static; it is changeable over time and across contexts.Understanding gender as a social and shifting construct rather than as a biological and fixed category is important because it helps to identify the complex and inter-related gender-based human rights violations caused by counterterrorism measures; to understand the underlying causes of these violations; and to design strategies for countering terrorism that are truly non-discriminatory and inclusive of all actors.

Our gender binary ideas are expanding.

The Price of Beauty

This is an article I wrote for a Thai student paper in 2008. Its a throw back but still relevant today. The intended audience is women who use these products every day.

Perms, pushup bras, braces, pinched and blistered feet from heels, hours of moisturizing, shaving, dying and bleaching. My grandmother referred to the painstaking female beauty routine as “the price of beauty.” While culture constructs some painful ways to achieve what it determines as beautiful, the most recent products that encourage those of asian and african descent to acquire lighter skin has forced many to ask if whitening products are worth the risk of cancer and other dangerous diseases.

Ask any Thai girl in college why she wears long sleeves in the scorching heat or applies endless amounts of whitening cream to her body, and she will most likely tell you what KKU student Darunya Rattanawan confesses, “Girls want to look white because they think it’s pretty. Thai girls use skin lightening lotion every morning and night.” Like young Western girls who spend countless hours trying to tan themselves in the sun, the price of changing ones skin tone may come at a dangerous cost. Doctors, consumer groups, and government officials have suggested that skin lightening products may lead to life threatening medical consequences.

Many doctors around Thailand have started to warn their patients about the dangers of these products. “More than 50% [of skin lightening products] are dangerous,” warns Utaitit Buekaew, a doctor from Kalasin province. Some of the most dangerous chemicals in these products are Mercury and Hydroquinone. In 2001 the European Union banned hydroquinone because of evidence that it causes leukemia in mice and other animals. In 2006 Wiete Westerhof, a dermatologist who founded the Netherlands Institute for Pigment Disorders in Amsterdam, and T.J. Kooyers, a Dutch chemist, said the long-term side effects of hydroquinone-based creams are “potential time bomb[s],” and that “all recent evidence from the literature indicates that the use of hydroquinone as a skin lightening agent should be stopped immediately.” Yet Hydroquinone remains one of the most widely used chemicals to bleach skin. “It’s very, very commonly used,” said Anil Ganjoo, a dermatologist in New Delhi, India and the president of the Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists, and Leprologists. “Almost every anti-pigment treatment uses hydroquinone.”

While Hydroquinone may be illegal in Thailand, Thada Piamphongsant, the president of the Thai Society of Cosmetic Dermatology and Surgery, believes that about half of all Thai dermatologists prescribe creams with hydroquinone. Even though Mercury and Hydroquinone based products are illegal there are few checks done by Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on cosmetic creams. Last year alone 62 new skin-whitening products were introduced in supermarkets and pharmacies across the Asia-Pacific region, according to Datamoniter, a market research firm. With the increasing amount of new skin lightening products there are many opportunities for harmful ones to be overlooked by the FDA, which last year published a list of 70 skin-whitening creams circulating illegally around the country.

For doctors in Isaan the increase in dangerous products is quite apparent. “In the last 2 years I have seen patients use skin lightening creams made from Mercury and other products that make the skin very red. It seems very painful and causes an infection. Thai women are very interested in these products because of the amount of promotion they receive in the media,” says Dr. Buekaew. No matter what skin whitening advertisements say, their creams cannot make a dark-skinned person white. If a cream contains UV protection it may block the suns harmful rays, but it will not whiten one’s skin. It is the dangerous whitening creams that take away outer layers of skin, which will make someone appear white. “There are inner [layers of skin that are light in color] and outer layers. The outer layers protect you from harmful UV rays. Once the outer layers [are] gone your body still produces melanin (the skin pigment that makes your skin dark) at certain points on your skin: this is what produces dark patches,” says Dr. Suthiwa According to the experts, the best way to take care of your body and skin is to eat vegetables and drink lots of water, which will naturally clear the skin. “Skin products will not help, but will cause inflammation” says Dr. Buekaew. “The media greatly influences Thai women to use these products without mentioning the disadvantages of using lightening products,” says Dr. Buekaew.

While “beauty” may be the overarching goal, it carries the expense of countless peoples’ health.

The Politics of Legalizing Abortion in Spain

This post is cross-posted at feministing community.

 

Bishops are threatening to excommunicate MPs, 500 thousand people and counting have stormed the streets and an apparent 71% of the population are in disagreement with new legislation. Spain is in turmoil, and it’s the new equality minister who sparked this ruckus. She, Bibiano Aido, has done her job well and has made some serious changes since she came into office. Alongside the Socialist Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, over the past 4 years Spain has legalized gay marriage, penalized domestic violence and rape assailants and fast-tracked divorce legislation. But all of this was a cinch compared to what the two now have in store for women’s rights in Spain. Legalizing abortions in a country that has had outlawed this essential women’s right since 1985. Imagine, no longer would Dutch ships have to park their vessels off the Spanish shoreline in international waters in order for Spanish women to legally obtain abortions. Women would be given the right to make those choices on their own. But what most upsets the Spaniards is the fact that within the new legislation, 16 year old daughters would be able to make this decision without parental consent. This stipulation is commonly used in legislation to ensure that women of all ages are able to obtain an abortion, regardless of parental views. Its important, especially in a nation where apparently 71% of the population do not agree with abortions, that young women have the opportunity to achieve this basic right. This provision has been addressed in CEDAW general recommendation 12 (29) however it is now time for Spanish parliament to educate and inform its constituents on the necessity of legalized abortion for all women’s rights, and not just those 18 and older. I’m tipping my hat off to Bibiano Aido and Zapetero, for their hard work (despite death threats and protests outside their doors) that will benefit woman all around the world.

Human Rights Dissertations This Past Year

I’ve had to write two 10,000 word essays this past year. They are long, and to most will be considered boring, however my ego and my need to talk about these subjects with others have forced me to post them in PDF form below. One paper is titled “The Gift of Colonialism: Colonialism Wielding Power Through Charity” and is about the way charities are able to control developing nations by the act of giving. The second one is “Sex Workers Human Rights: The Universal Marginalization of Sex Workers’ Rights in Human Rights Law,” and is about the way states and international law have ignored and violated sex workers human rights because of the cultural stigma of sex workers.

If you do get the chance to read them, let me know what you think and how I can expand these ideas.  Cheers.

The Gift of Colonialism

Sex Workers Human Rights

“Thought is Free”

It’s no surprise or chance of misfortune that I am broke. The economy sucks and I am still jobless. I am lucky to have family and friends that help support me in these empty times and I understand that compared to many around the world I still live an extravagant lifestyle in London (although personally, with a budget of £10 a week I have forced a new meaning to frugality).  I’ve started to really appreciate the free things in life. Family, friends, people, the sun, laughter, books (hello library card), and most importantly thought. Shakespeare was spot on, “thought is free,” and while I can easily say that I am poor as a peasant, I have an abundance of opinions, opportunity and hope wield up in my thoughts. We all do. Its how we choose to use this abundant, complimentary mentality that matters.

Now if only we could get my University to bounce on board the Shakespeare train and let my degree be free……

The British National Party (BNP) on the BBC

Think the KKK meets libertarians, meets the rich. That is the British National Party.  This week  the BNP chairman and member of the EU parliament for northwest England Nick Griffin was on the popular british show Question Time. The BBC show is suppose to allow Brits the chance to ask political questions to leaders and popular people, however, many do not think that the BNP leader should have been allowed to voice his hatred beliefs over public broadcasting.

The BNP is a hate group that happens to have political party status in England. For example, the BNP opposes immigration, saying “The indigenous people of Britain have been victims of a genocide in recent months.” Last April they suggested that black and Asian Britons  be called “resident foreigners’, proclaiming that recent mass immigration was denying the English their own identity, and that the children of migrants did not become British simply by being born in Britain, to them it is “In a very subtle way, it’s a sort of bloodless genocide.” This is not a joke, when I first moved to London I accidently engaged in a conversation with these old angry white dudes at speakers corner. These neo-nazis feel that they have every right to express these opinions, causing an uproar for political activists who see these statements as forms of hate crimes.

The BNP want to kick 2 million people out of England, and it ain’t white people who they think should go. Its the Jews, Muslims and anyone who isn’t of Anglo Saxons blood. Sound familiar?  Griffin has publicly denied the Holocaust, calling it the Holohoax. He’s also proclaimed that whites are being targeted by all Muslims. This man is beyond nuts, he is a liability to all,  but somehow he is allowed a place in the EU parliament.

I think what is most important about this is the fact that two BNP leaders were elected into EU Parliament last June. How and why did Britons vote for men who they know to have neo-nazi views? Conservative leader David Cameron announced after the election that it “sicks me as it should sicken everyone here that the BNP has suceeded in these EU elections.” But everyone is too busy being disgusted at the outragous beliefs of the BNP, to stop and question  how the BNP is getting these votes.

The BNP appeals to a large percentage of Brits who A) Do not want to be involved in the EU, they see it as draining on their resources, economy and sovereignty. B) Think Britains liberal immigration standards (liberal in comparison to the U.S, France, China) have allowed too many asylum and immigrant seekers to move in, and  C) believe immigration has costed the country millions in providing resources for these families (i.e. state pensions).

I’m a raging liberal, but I still see these as legit political concerns that there should be real political discussions over in order to silence some of the frustration millions of Brits are feeling (including those who would not identify as BNPers).  However, it seams that because the BNP holds a monopoly over these topics, parliament  can not seriously engage in some of these discussions without seaming nationalistic or bigoted.

Labour, Conservative and other political parties would be best served by addressing some of these concerns in their own policies. The devastation the BNP is causing is only growing. As long as the BNP is a political party, in an essence of being nonpartisan, the BBC has to allow the BNP air time. Liberals are worried that if you don’t sensor the BNP, their membership will grow. This is also a scary idea. Democracy works best when everyone can voice their opinions, and when their can be real political discussions over every opinion. Thats when the fools are dunced. If their not included in the debate, they are the martyrs.