Summer, it's a great time to do a lot of reading. So as I usually do, I spend at least an hour every morning before work catching up on the days news. I have to say that not much usually makes me feel disgust towards my fellow human beings, it's partly because you hear so much disgraceful actions being committed by the human race that it takes a lot to really impact us. Today I came across at least 3 articles that made me churn. I've been following the court case in Angers, France in which 65 people were charged with sexual assault offences, often involving their own children. It was a paedophile ring in a very small rural village in France. 62 people are going to jail as a result some for as long as 28 or more years, the children's ages ranged from 6 months to 14 years old. In total over 45 children were abused over a 4 year period. A couple prostituted out these children in exchange for cigarettes and other little tokens. I've studied a lot this year about the sex slavery industry ruunning in asia and Eastern Europe and from reading this story I can tell you that it ranks up there with some of the worst. The one positive thing that came out of this case that greatly distances the French paedophile case from so many other sex abuse rings is that 62 people out of 65 accused (There were 66 but one was too sick to stand trial) are going to prison for what they've done. Justice, while bittersweet will be had by those victims and their families, which is much more then will ever occur for the thousands of victims of sex slavery around the world. For more information check out BBC News,
Child Abuse Gang Horrifies France or
France Sentences Sex Ring MembersOn to a more local story "More possible victims sought by Durham police: Oshawa teacher faces sex charges Parents asked
to contact officers". Jeremy Raymond Pike a 33 year old teacher at an elementary school in Oshawa is being charged with sexually assaulting 2 children with whom he had contact through babysitting, volunteering with youth and being a Big Brother. His creepy face stared at me from the paper as I sat and drank my coffee this aft. I sat thinking, my god.. this guy was interviewed for a position with kids and no one saw it coming. He has been working with young people since the mid 1990's as the Toronto Star said. It makes you wonder if he went into Youth Crisis work just to continue his sick obsessions of sexual acts with children. Sometimes you wonder, did he go to work every day feeling satisfied at the fact that he got his sexual desires fulfilled by innocent children? He was a teacher, I know sex offences are horrible no matter what.. but he was given a task to protect children and nurture them, and all he did was take advantage. And the worst thing? Because Ontario doesn't have very strict laws for sex offenders, he'll probably not even spend more then 2 years in prison. One can hope, but it's happened too many times for there to be much.
Lastly for today. My friend who is an editor and photographer for Global Aware (check it out if you don't know about it, it's an independent media group, its fab!) sent me an article that she thought I'd be interested in. We both have aspirations to be journalists and documentary filmmakers and today I realized even more that there truly isn't such a thing as Free Press and I worry about the news that we read on a daily basis. The article, written by Diane Barahona, a freelance journalist and has been an election observer in Venezuala and other L.A. countries was about the RSF, Reporters Without Borders. As Barahona says, the organization which was formed embodies the reputation of another respected French organization Medecins Sans Frontiers, or Doctors without Borders. But Barahona makes the case that the group of reporters from various countries does not deserve the same reputation as MSF as a respectable institution. Robert Menard founded the organization to be an advocate for the freedom of press in countries that create victims of its media. Barahona makes the case that RSF's work in Cuba has been dictated by American Foreign Policy and not by freedom of the press. In fact if you follow the work of RSF in Cuba it has been to depict the Cuba in only negative views and meddling in more then just journalism advocacy work. The RSF has been involved in the politics of this country, including Menard being accused of working for the US state security and posing as a dissident to gather information about Cuban political operations.
"In September 1998 Menard traveled to Havana to recruit people to write stories for RSF to publish. He later told Calvo in his interview, "we give $50 a month each to around twenty journalists so they can survive and stay in the country." But Menard's first representative in Cuba, veteran journalist Nestor Baguer, disputed that description of the relationship in interviews he gave to Granma after he revealed that he had been working for state security while posing as a dissident. Baguer maintained that RSF would only pay for articles turned in, and that they had to attack the Cuban government. He did not consider most of the so-called independent journalists to be either independent or journalists; few had received any formal training and he was forced to severely edit their copy something he called a "terrible penance."
By paying journalists to give one side of the story while portraying the organization to provide independent media is a very attack at our right to freedom of press. It's rather disgusting to see that some patrons of the RSF are hit-men and that RSF had ties with Otto Reich, and others who wished to bring down Cuba's economy when it was starting to build itself back up again. And associating with the very people accused of surpressing independent media sources in a country like Cuba is dispicable and takes a stab at our human rights. To read Barahona's article go to
Reporters Without Borders Unmasked. To get more information on the RSF you can find more articles at Global Aware and its website at http://www.rsf.org.
That's all for today. I just hope that something can be done to preserve our choices for independent media sources and that we can create accountability to those producing these publications. Remember be cautious and critical of what you read. Always.
