Tag Archives: activist

Teen in Lincoln Memorial protest sues Washington Post for $250 million

FILE PHOTO: Nicholas Sandmann, 16, a student from Covington Catholic High School stands in front of Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington, U.S., in this still image from a January 18, 2019 video by Kaya Taitano. Kaya Taitano/Social Media/via REUTERS/File Photo

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – A high school student from Covington, Kentucky, sued the Washington Post for defamation on Tuesday, claiming the newspaper falsely accused him of racist acts and instigating a confrontation with a Native American activist in a January videotaped incident at the Lincoln Memorial.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kentucky by Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann, 16, seeks $250 million in damages, the amount that Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and the world’s richest person, paid for the Post in 2013.

The lawsuit claims that the newspaper “wrongfully targeted and bullied” the teen to advance its bias against President Donald Trump because Sandmann is a white Catholic who wore a Make America Great Again souvenir cap on a school field trip to the March for Life anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 18.

The Washington Post’s Vice President for Communications Kristine Coratti Kelly said: “We are reviewing a copy of the lawsuit and we plan to mount a vigorous defense.”

In a photo that went viral from the incident, Sandmann is seen standing face to face with Native American activist Nathan Phillips. Sandmann stares smiling at him while Phillips sings and plays his drum.

The incident sparked outrage on social media.

FIRST OF MANY

In a statement, Sandmann’s Atlanta-based lawyer, Lin Wood, said additional similar lawsuits would be filed in the weeks ahead.

A private investigation firm retained by Covington Diocese in Park Hills, Kentucky, found in a report released last week no evidence the teenagers provoked a confrontation.

The students were met at the Lincoln Memorial by offensive statements from members of the Black Hebrew Israelites, the report said.

The investigation also determined that the students did not direct any racist or offensive comments toward Phillips although several performed a “tomahawk chop” to the beat of his drum.

Phillips claimed in a separate video that he heard the students chanting “build that wall,” during the encounter, a reference to Trump’s pledge to build a barrier along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The investigators said they found no evidence of such a chant and that Phillips did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in DenverWriting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; editing by Bill Tarrant, Bill Berkrot and Cynthia Osterman)

YouTube attacker was vegan activist who accused tech firm of discrimination

Police officers are seen at Youtube headquarters following an active shooter situation in San Bruno, California, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

By Paresh Dave

SAN BRUNO, Calif. (Reuters) – The woman identified by police as the attacker who wounded three people at YouTube’s headquarters in California was a vegan blogger who accused the video-sharing service of discriminating against her, according to her online profile.

Nasim Najafi Aghdam appears in a handout photo provided by the San Bruno Police Department, April 4, 2018. San Bruno Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

Nasim Najafi Aghdam appears in a handout photo provided by the San Bruno Police Department, April 4, 2018. San Bruno Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

Police said 39-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam from San Diego was behind Tuesday’s shooting at YouTube’s offices in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco, where the company owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google employs nearly 2,000 people.

A man was in critical condition and two women were seriously wounded in the attack, which ended when Aghdam shot and killed herself.

Californian media reported that Aghdam’s family had warned the authorities that she may target YouTube prior to the shooting. Her father Ismail Aghdam told The Mercury News that he had told police that she might be going to YouTube’s headquarters because she “hated” the company.

Police said they were still investigating possible motives but Aghdam’s online activities show that she believed YouTube was deliberately obstructing her videos from being viewed.

“YouTube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views,” she wrote on YouTube according to a screenshot of her account. Her channel was deleted on Tuesday.

Writing in Persian on her Instagram account, Aghdam said she was born in Iranian city of Urmiah but that she was not planning to return to Iran.

“I think I am doing a great job. I have never fallen in love and have never got married. I have no physical and psychological diseases,” she wrote.

“But I live on a planet that is full of injustice and diseases.”

Her family in Southern California recently reported her missing because she had not been answering her phone for two days, police said.

At one point early Tuesday, Mountain View, California, police found her sleeping in her car and called her family to say everything was under control, hours before she walked onto the company grounds with a hand gun and opened fire.

The United States is in the grips of a fierce national debate around tighter curbs on gun ownership after the killing of 17 people in a mass shooting at a Florida high school in February. Authorities there failed to act on two warnings about the attacker prior to the shooting, prompting a public outcry.

Aghdam ran a website called NasimeSabz.com, which translates as “Green Breeze” from Persian, on which she posted about Persian culture, veganism and long, rambling passages railing against corporations and governments.

“BE AWARE! Dictatorships exist in all countries. But with different tactics,” she wrote. “They care only for short term profits and anything to to reach their goals even by fooling simple-minded people.”

Complaints about alleged censorship on YouTube are not unique. The video service has long faced a challenge in balancing its mission of fostering free speech with the need to both promote an appropriate and lawful environment for users.

In some cases involving videos with sensitive content, YouTube has allowed the videos to stay online but cut off the ability for their publishers to share in advertising revenue.

Criticisms from video makers that YouTube is too restrictive about which users can participate in revenue sharing swelled last year as the company imposed new restrictions.

YouTube spokeswoman Jessica Mason could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in ANKARA; Writing by Rich McKay; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Activist Chicago priest reflects on city’s ‘shameful’ violent year

Father Michael Pfleger comforts Lutrice Boyd and her granddaughter Faith Davis during a news conference by "Purpose over Pain", a group of mothers who lost children to gun violence, calling for a stop to shootings in Chicago, Illinois,

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A longtime activist Chicago priest who has marched in protests, attended vigils and delivered sermons decrying violence in the city’s most deadly year in nearly two decades, fears the surge in murders could continue into 2017.

Father Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church on Chicago’s predominantly black South Side where many of the more than 700 murders occurred, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that police were struggling to rebuild trust with people as guns were also flowing onto the streets.

“This year is through the roof,” Pfleger, 67, said. “The numbers are shameful,” he added. “They should be embarrassing to us and they should make us outraged.”

There have been 711 murders in the third largest city in the United States so far in 2016, the Chicago Police Department said, a number not seen since 1997 when 761 were murdered, and more than Los Angeles and New York combined reported this year. Both cities have considerably higher populations than Chicago’s 2.7 million residents.

 

Father Michael Pfleger (3rd R) marches through the streets of a South Side neighborhood during a weekly night-time peace demonstration in Chicago, Illinois,

Father Michael Pfleger (3rd R) marches through the streets of a South Side neighborhood during a weekly night-time peace demonstration in Chicago, Illinois, September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young

Chicago’s police department has undertaken a series of reforms following the shooting death of a black teenager by a white officer and is under federal investigation to determine whether the department has systematically violated constitutional rights.

Pfleger said the number of guns in the city had increased dramatically over the past 20 years, contributing to the large death toll.

“You have more guns now than we have ever had. America, whether we want to admit it or not, has made them part of our wardrobe,” the priest said.

The number of guns recovered for the year through November was nearly 8,000, up 20 percent from a year ago, while gun-related arrests were up 8 percent, police said.

Father Michael Pfleger (2nd L) prays at Saint Sabina Church before taking part in a weekly night-time peace march through the streets of a South Side neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois,

Father Michael Pfleger (2nd L) prays at Saint Sabina Church before taking part in a weekly night-time peace march through the streets of a South Side neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, September 16, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young

“The levels of violence we have seen this year in some of our communities is absolutely unacceptable,” police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said in a statement at the beginning of December.

Much of Chicago’s violence occurs on its poverty stricken west and south sides.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin; editing by Grant McCool)