The Worst Crime on the Planet

“The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world. The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity - it’s appalling.” - John Holmes, United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs.

Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore. Every day ten new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so brutally attacked that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair. He performs as many as six rape-related surgeries a day. Bed after bed is filled with women lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling, with colostomy bags hanging next to them because of all the internal damage.

Honorata Barinjibanwa was kidnapped from her village in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree; she still has rope marks on her neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her. She is just 18 years old. And now she is pregnant.

Kasindi Wabulasa was raped in February by five men. They held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished they shot him anyway.

Read the full story from the New York Times...

A Prisoner and You Visited Me...

Floyd Brown has been confined to a North Carolina mental institution against his will for the last 14 years, charged with a murder which he claims he did not commit. Because he has the IQ of a 6-year-old and does not understand the legal process, he cannot be brought to trial and the case against him cannot be argued in front of a jury.

Mr. Brown is charged in the death of 80-year-old Katherine Lynch, who was beaten to death with her own walking stick. There were no known witnesses to Lynch's murder and no physical evidence linking Mr. Brown to her death. The only evidence against him is a confession given after he signed away his constitutional rights. But at least three forensic psychiatrists and several of Brown's former special education teachers say that he is not capable of understanding the confession, or even of making it.

The detectives who extracted the confession from Mr. Brown were later convicted on unrelated charges of racketeering for shaking down criminal suspects. Court records show that the two extorted money from criminal suspects in exchange for not filing or dropping charges against them. The agent who investigated their case said, "They were as dirty as anyone I've seen. They could have done anything."

Floyd Brown does not understand why he is in a mental institution or why he is being held against his will. A court hearing is scheduled for early this month in what is probably his last chance at freedom. Maybe justice will finally prevail and Floyd Brown will be allowed to go home.

Read the full story...

October 8, 2007 - Update

Durham County Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson ordered Floyd Brown freed Monday after dismissing the case against him.