FEDERAL JUDGE GETS AWAY WITH DOMESTIC ABUSE, NFL PLAYERS PAY & 'He's beating on me,' wife of judge who presided over Siegelman, Scrushy trials says in 911 call 22SEP&13AUG14

THIS pig, judge mark fuller, is more dangerous than the NFL players being suspended, fired, fined and experiencing the shame of trial by public opinion for allegations of domestic abuse. He is more dangerous because if he is allowed to stay on the federal bench, he will know he can beat his wife again with no consequences. The fact that he was allowed this deal, probably granted by another  (in reality or fantasizing) abusive judge, shows the culture of affluenza seriously corrupts our judicial system. And while many are critical of the nfl for their mishandling of the cases involving players there has been little commentary about the Alabama judicial / political community's lack of action and outrage. It is only recently Sens shelby and sessions (both r tb AL) have publicly called on mark fuller to resign. If you are as outraged and disgusted as the rest of us are please sign this petition from UltraViolet demanding mark fuller resign from the bench or be removed. Click the link below.....
Federal Judge Mark Fuller was arrested for domestic violence last month after his wife called 911 during the attack, and not only was let off the hook--he's still sitting on the federal bench. As news of this case spreads across the media even Alabama's conservative senators have called on him to be removed from his job. A man like this has no place as a judge. Will you add your name?

Tell Judge Fuller: Domestic abusers should have no place in making justice decisions. Resign immediately.

In a recording of the 911 call from Fuller's wife, she begs for help as he is assaulting her in a high-end Atlanta hotel.¹ When police arrived, she was in tears, with lacerations on her face. She told them that he pulled her by her hair, threw her to the ground, and dragged, kicked, and hit her in the face.²

Evidence, including broken glass, blood, and hair was collected from the hotel room, and Fuller was arrested.³
But rather than face trial, Fuller agreed to a 24-week domestic violence intervention program. He will spend no time behind bars--he's set to return to the bench--and his record will be expunged.⁴
Fuller has completely lost the public trust. Men who beat their wives should have no place in deciding justice for others. And right now, there's a ton of attention on domestic violence. It has even forced Alabama's senators to call on Fuller to step down.⁵ If we all call for his resignation now, the public outcry will force him out of the judgeship.
Can you sign the petition?
Thanks for speaking out.
--Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Karin, Adam, Gabriela, Holly, Kaili, Kathy, Onyi, and Susan, the UltraViolet team

Sources:
1. 'He's beating on me,' wife of judge who presided over Siegelman, Scrushy trials says in 911 call, AL.com, August 13, 2014
2. ibid
3. ibid
4. Wife-beating is not a private matter, CNN, September 16, 2014

5. Senators Shelby, Sessions want Mark Fuller to resign, Montgomery Advertiser, September 18, 2014

'He's beating on me,' wife of judge who presided over Siegelman, Scrushy trials says in 911 call

By The Associated Press
on August 13, 2014 at 2:56 PM, updated August 13, 2014 at 3:52 PM

Federal judge Mark Fuller was arrested Saturday at Atlanta's Ritz Carlton hotel.  

The wife of a federal judge arrested earlier this week on suspicion of hitting her told emergency dispatchers that she was being beaten and needed an ambulance.
U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller, meanwhile, has been stripped of his case load in the Middle District of Alabama as he stands charged with misdemeanor domestic battery in a Georgia court.
In a recording of a 911 call obtained by The Associated Press, the woman who dialed authorities identified herself as Kelli Fuller and reported that she was involved in a domestic dispute at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Atlanta.
"He's beating on me. Please help me," the woman tells the 911 dispatcher before saying that she needed paramedics.
The recording was released to AP on Wednesday in response to an open records request.
Atlanta police arrested Fuller, 55, early Sunday. He was released from the Fulton County Jail on a $5,000 bond after a hearing Monday. Best known for sentencing former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to prison after a public corruption conviction, Fuller must appear in court again Aug. 22.
About a minute into the call, as the initial dispatcher patches an ambulance dispatcher into the call, the woman identified as Kelli Fuller, 41, can be heard saying 'I hate you, I hate you." A male voice responds: "I hate you too" followed by dull noises in the background.
The woman's voice can be heard loudly repeating: "Help me, please. Please help me. He's beating on me."
The initial dispatcher tells the ambulance dispatcher: "She says that she's in a domestic fight and I can hear him hitting her now."
According to a written incident report, Kelli Fuller "answered the door in tears" when police arrived. She had visible cuts on her mouth and forehead when police arrived. She was treated at the hotel by paramedics but refused to be taken to a hospital.
Police say the judge was on the bed when they entered the room, which smelled of alcohol. There was broken glass and hair on the floor. Blood was discovered in the bathroom.
Kelli Fuller told police that her husband became violent after she accused him of having an affair with a law clerk in his Montgomery, Alabama, office. She said he pulled her hair, threw her to the ground and dragged her, kicked her and struck her several times in the face.
Mark Fuller told police that his wife became violent as she confronted him with allegations of cheating. The judge told police he was watching television when his wife threw a drink glass at him. He told officers that he grabbed her hair and threw her to the ground to defend himself. Mark Fuller had no visible injuries, the report said.
Kelli and Mark Fuller married after the judge and his previous wife, Lisa Boyd Fuller, divorced in 2012. That divorce file in Montgomery County was sealed at Mark Fuller's request.
Misdemeanor offenses in Georgia generally are punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. But Fuller already faces professional consequences for his arrest, as a notice posted on the 11th Judicial Circuit's website said all cases pending in his court will be reassigned to other judges and that no new matters will be assigned to him "until further notice."
According to the Middle District's online schedule, Fuller had been scheduled to preside in his own courtroom Monday at 10 a.m. for a hearing. He has two trials scheduled for next week and multiple hearings scheduled for Aug. 22, the day he's due back in Atlanta as a defendant.
A woman who answered the telephone at the judge's chambers on Wednesday gave no comment.
Federal judges are confirmed by the Senate to lifetime terms, though the chamber can also remove them from office.
Fuller, a former district attorney in southwest Alabama, was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2002 upon the recommendation of Alabama Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, both Republicans.
Through aides, both senators have declined comment.
In 2006, Fuller presided over the trial of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy.
Updated at 3:52 p.m. to show both senators, through aides, declined to comment.

This Afghan Policewoman Died Fighting the Taliban. Now Right-Wingers Are Desecrating Her Photo. 22SEP14

THIS is a really sad but telling commentary on the rabid racism being promoted by these groups in the U.K. and Australia. It is shameful they are perverting and twisting the life of this brave woman and insulting to her sacrifice, memory and the hope she brought Afghan women. From +Mother Jones .....

This Afghan Policewoman Died Fighting the Taliban. Now Right-Wingers Are Desecrating Her Photo.

—By Elizabeth Gettelman

| Mon Sep. 22, 2014 6:00 AM EDT

Malalai Kakar was a police officer in Afghanistan. She was also a mother of six, a feminist, and a fearsome threat to the Taliban, who gunned her down in 2008. You would know some of Kakar's story if you'd come across Lana Šlezic's captivating photography of women in Afghanistan in Mother Jones and other publications. But the right-wing Britain First party recently co-opted a photo of Kakar—taken in 2005 just before she headed out on a raid to free a kidnap victim—using it as propaganda in the online "ban the burka" campaign. Its August 30 Facebook post using the image has been shared more than 44,000 times. The photo didn't make headlines though until Friday, when Australian senator Jacqui Lambie of the Palmer United Party (created in 2013 by mining magnate Clive Palmer) shared the photo on her Facebook page, prompting news outlets to ask Šlezic whether she was aware how her photograph was being used.

Šlezic's original image as it appeared in the July/August 2007 issue of Mother Jones

Šlezic was appalled. "The way her image has been misused for inflammatory purposes has left me, well, somewhat speechless," she says. She immediately contacted both Britain First and Lambie asking them to remove the photo, but neither has complied. Lambie told the Sydney Morning Herald that she "absolutely stands by it" and won't take the photo off her page. On Saturday she posted a "Letter to the Editor" on Facebook calling Šlezic's response a "gross over-reaction," adding that "Malalai Kakar would have been the first to agree with my call to ban the burka."
Šlezic told the Independent, "It's a complete misrepresentation of the truth. It insults everything she stood for, it insults her and her family and suggests a story that is opposite of the truth. It is also an infringement of intellectual property." She has filed a copyright complaint with Facebook.
Šlezic spent two years in Afghanistan documenting the plight of women and girls, and her Mother Jones photo essay including Kakar's image was a National Magazine Award finalist in 2008.

During my two years in Afghanistan, I spent time with Malalai and her family on several trips to Kandahar. I spent time with her in her office while she consoled and helped women who were victims of domestic violence, rape, and forced marriage. I went out on a kidnapping raid with her, witnessed her apprehending a kidnapper and freeing the young teenage girl from his home. She really was a heroine for me, the light at the end of a very dark two year tunnel. Because of her, I believed there was hope for Afghan women and girls. When she was assassinated by the Taliban in September 2008 in front of her home and child, that hope, that light was extinguished.

Šlezic adds a plea to the public:

I'm asking you to lend your voice, your thoughts, your tweets and whatever else you can to send a message back to these people who without consent, without thought, without pause posted such a vulgar misappropriation of Malalai and everything she stood for. She was an extraordinary human being who fought for the rights of Afghan women and girls. Her memory should be respected.

Lt. Colonel Malalai Kakar (left) counseling a woman in her office Lana Šlezic

Elizabeth Gettelman

Public Affairs Director

Elizabeth Gettelman is a former managing editor at Mother Jones. To follow her on Twitter, click here.

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Malaysia must stop criminalizing migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers from AI 4NOV10

PLEASE participate in this action calling on the Malaysian government to protect migrant workers, who make up 25% of the Malaysian workforce. The physical, sexual, psychological and economic abuse suffered by these people is horrible, and often includes torture. Amnesty International is calling on the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia to crack down on agencies in both countries that manipulate, exploit and abuse these workers and the employers who treat these people as slaves, or worse. Think about your family members being one of these migrants and click the header to participate.

Malaysia must stop criminalizing migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers

This is the story of a 22 year old ethnic Karen man from Myanmar.  He told Amnesty International the story of his detention in Lenggeng in Malaysia.  He was later sentenced by a judge to whipping and was sent to Kajang prison.  He has since been recognised as a refugee by the UNHCR, but not by the Malaysian government.
“I left Myanmar for Malaysia because of the military regime.  Once in Malaysia, I worked in many different places—in a paper factory, planting flowers, in a restaurant, an oil palm plantation and in a car wash where I as arrested during a RELA (volunteer immigration forces) raid.  That was in May 2008.
After my arrest, I spent three hours in a police station.  Then I was sent to the Lenggeng detention camp.
In Lenggeng, there were insects that bit us all the time.  They bit me all over.  No mattresses were provided; we slept on the wooden platforms.   We were only given a blanket and a mug.
After 15 days, I was sent to court.  I did not understand what was going on because there was no translator.  A Chin from Myanmar translated for me when I was questioned by the judge.
The judge asked where I was from, to which I replied.  He did not ask whether I was registered with the UNHCR or not.  When he asked why I had come to Malaysia, I said it was because of money.  When he told me to return to my country, I said I did not have a passport or any money that would allow me to return.  The judge then asked me if what I had done was “salah” (wrong), and I said yes.  I was sentenced to a month in jail and one strike of “rotan” (caning/whipping).
On the day I was whipped, they removed all my clothing except for a small piece of cloth to cover my penis.  It was like a trouser but with the buttocks area cut off.  They tied me up.  I was hit once very hard with a cane.  It cut my skin and hurt very much.  There was blood.  I could not wear any proper clothing for five days after the caning because of the pain and because it stuck to my cut.  I still have nightmares about it.  I cannot bear thinking about it.  I am very afraid that I may be whipped again if caught.”
After he served his sentence, he was deported to the Thai border, where he was trafficked back into Malaysia after paying the traffickers 2,200 ringgit (US$600).  At the time of the interview, he was working as an undocumented migrant in Malaysia.

Thank you for participating in this action. We really appreciate your help. Your letter was sent to the Malaysian Home Minister who is in charge of immigration into the country. Please invite others to take part in this action. If you have five more minutes, may we ask you to participate in two more web actions that are on the protection of migrants in Malaysia. Please follow the two links below. Your support means a lot to our campaign and to the people whose lives are at risk. To write to the Malaysian Prime Minister and ask him to protect all migrants in his country, please go to: http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/malaysia-must-protect-migra... To write to the Indonesian Minister for Transmigration and ask him to ensure that his government ensure the protection of Indonesians working in Malaysia (they are one of the largest sending countries of migrants), please go to: http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/indonesian-government-must-... Again, thank you very much for your help.