crimes and criminals
Court Hearing for Nubian Protesters
A court hearing has finally been held in Aswan, Egypt, for the 32 Nubian protesters who had been arrested following their demonstration on September 3, 2017. Of the 32 people, 24 were arrested during the protests that day and the rest were apprehended later. Charged by the government with such crimes as inciting protests, disrupting […]
Petty Theft by Some Birhor
The Times of India last Tuesday published a story about some Birhor people that was straight out of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, arguably one of the greatest novels of western literature. Like Jean Valjean, the major character in the novel, five Birhor men are facing lengthy prison sentences for the crime of petty theft. Valjean […]
Tahitians Oppose a New Marina
A storm has been brewing over a proposed development on the northwest coast of Raiatea, but the disgruntled Tahitians are so far expressing their opposition through petitions and protests. One of the Leeward Group in the Society Islands, Raiatea is perhaps best known for its remarkable Taputapuatea Marae, a large grouping of ancient stone structures […]
Yanadi Flee, then Protest, Police Brutality
An investigation of a rape and murder in Andhra Pradesh became nasty for the Yanadi recently when the police rounded up and then roughed up some villagers. But unlike the tacit avoidance of conflict with authority figures that has characterized them in the past, these Yanadi protested to higher authorities. After the police began picking […]
Piaroa Leader Murdered
On Friday May 12, at 8:00 o’clock in the evening, Freddy Menare, a prominent Piaroa leader, was assassinated in Puerto Ayacucho, the capital city of Venezuela’s Amazonas state. The as-yet unidentified gunmen shot the 48-year old man in the back while he walked along Orinoco Avenue, a busy commercial street near the indigenous market in […]
Hate (the Amish) Crimes
Early Sunday morning last week, a black pickup truck paused in front of an Amish farmhouse in central Ohio and an occupant fired a single shot through the dwelling from a high-powered firearm. The vehicle drove another quarter mile, paused in front of another Amish home and the occupant fired again, another single shot, through […]
Amish Hate Crimes Convictions Reversed
Last Wednesday, a U.S. appeals court reversed the hate crimes convictions of Sam Mullet, Sr., and his followers, a decision that Donald Kraybill compared to “splitting legal hairs over Amish beards.” A three-member panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, decided that the federal judge in Cleveland had […]
Amish Self Concepts—Prisoners Relate their Experiences
Reuters recently interviewed an Ohio Amish couple who have returned to their homes after nearly a year in prison, to which they were sentenced as a result of their hate crimes. Kathryn and Raymond Miller, from Bergholz, Ohio, had participated with 14 others in attacks on several other Amish people in northeastern Ohio under the […]
The Yanadi: Criminals or Sought After Citizens
The Yanadi were stigmatized as a “Criminal Tribe” by the British, and while they are still very poor, a recent series of articles suggests conditions may be improving. The Hindu, a major paper in India, has run three news stories over the past year on a small Yanadi hamlet in Andhra Pradesh. They report some […]
Sam Mullet Headed a Cult, not an Amish Congregation
Sam Mullet and his followers were members of a cult—they were not really Amish people, according to Donald Kraybill, a leading scholar of Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College. Mullet, plus a number of men and women in his congregation, were convicted last September in federal court of hate crimes for aggressively cutting the hair and […]
