martes, 28 de septiembre de 2010

Judges Question California Execution

September 28, 2010

Judges Question California Execution

By JESSE McKINLEY and MALIA WOLLAN

SAN FRANCISCO — With California’s first execution in more than four years rescheduled for this week, a federal appellate panel raised serious questions about the state’s motivation amid concerns about one of the drugs used in the lethal injection process.

Albert G. Brown Jr., 56, was convicted in 1982 of raping and strangling a 15-year-old girl in Riverside, Calif. He had been scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday. But on Monday. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, postponed the execution to allow for more legal arguments on Mr. Brown’s behalf. The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation rescheduled the execution for Thursday evening.

Mr. Schwarzenegger’s reprieve came shortly after state officials announced that the execution would be the last in California until one of the drugs proposed for his execution — sodium thiopental, a barbiturate — could be restocked by the corrections department. The drug has been in short supply nationwide for most of the year, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Moreover, Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the corrections department, confirmed that its supply of sodium thiopental was good only until Friday, just hours after Mr. Brown’s planned execution.

The timing seemed to shock the three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Late Monday, the panel ordered Judge Jeremy D. Fogel of Federal District Court — who had denied a stay of execution for Mr. Brown last week — to reconsider his decision, saying the plan to put Mr. Brown to death appeared to have been dictated by the rapidly approaching expiration date for its sodium thiopental.

“It is incredible to think that the deliberative process might be driven by the expiration date of the execution drug,” the panel wrote.

The appellate court also raised questions about the constitutionality of the state’s new, recently approved protocol for lethal injection — a three-drug cocktail similar to one used in other states — regulations that Judge Fogel has said he had insufficient time to fully ponder in light of Mr. Brown’s looming execution date.

Monday’s order from the appellate court capped a whirlwind day in which Mr. Brown’s fortunes seemed to rise and fall with each passing hour. Earlier Monday, Mr. Brown had been denied a stay from a state judge, Verna A. Adams, in Marin County, where San Quentin State Prison is, who said he had not shown that he would suffer undue pain during the process, something that could violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

As for the drug issue, how exactly sodium thiopental became scarce is unclear. The Food and Drug Administration reported shortages in March, citing production issues with Hospira, a company in Illinois that is the sole American manufacturer.

A company spokesman, Dan Rosenberg, said that the drug was unavailable because an active pharmaceutical ingredient was in low supply and that Hospira was working to get the drug back on the market by early next year. But Mr. Rosenberg also expressed displeasure that the drug — meant to be used as an anesthetic — had found its way into death chambers.

“Hospira manufactures this product because it improves or saves lives, and the company markets it solely for use as indicated on the product labeling,” Mr. Rosenberg said in a statement. “The drug is not indicated for capital punishment, and Hospira does not support its use in this procedure.”

He added that the company had made that opinion clear to corrections departments nationwide.

On Monday, Ms. Thornton said her department was continuing with preparations for Mr. Brown’s execution and had enough sodium thiopental to stop Mr. Brown’s heart. She added that the state was “actively seeking supplies of the drug for future executions.”

Mr. Brown’s execution had been cleared on Friday by Judge Fogel, who had effectively halted executions in the state in 2006 after expressing concern about a three-drug cocktail commonly used in lethal injection procedures and various deficiencies in the state’s methods, including the training of execution teams, antiquated facilities and the preparation of execution drugs.

Since then, however, California has drafted detailed new regulations — approved this year — to guide executions, and it built a new death chamber at San Quentin, north of San Francisco.

jueves, 23 de septiembre de 2010

Discrimination Against Muslims in Workplace Spiked Last Year

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

At a time of growing tensions involving Muslims in the United States, a record number of Muslim workers are complaining of employment discrimination, from co-workers calling them “terrorist” or “Osama” to employers barring them from wearing head scarves or taking prayer breaks.

Such complaints were increasing even before frictions erupted over the planned Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, with Muslim workers filing a record 803 such claims in the year ended Sept. 30, 2009. That was up 20 percent from the previous year and up nearly 60 percent from 2005, according to federal data.

The number of complaints filed since then will not be announced until January, but Islamic groups say they have received a surge in complaints recently, suggesting that 2010’s figure will set another record.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found enough merit in some of the complaints that it has filed several prominent lawsuits on behalf of Muslim workers.

Last month, the commission sued JBS Swift, a meatpacking company, on behalf of 160 Somali immigrants, saying supervisors and workers had cursed them for being Muslim; thrown blood, meat and bones at them; and interrupted their prayer breaks.

On Sept. 1, the commission filed a case against Abercrombie & Fitch, the fashionable clothing retailer, accusing it of discrimination for refusing to hire an 18-year-old Muslim because she was wearing a head scarf.

And in June, the agency sued a Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Phoenix, asserting that its management had illegally permitted a hostile work environment in which workers called an Iraqi immigrant a “camel jockey,” mocked him with Arab ululations and taunted him over news items about captured terrorists. (The hotel’s manager said many of the claims were untrue.)

“There’s a level of hatred and animosity that is shocking,” said Mary Jo O’Neill, regional attorney of the E.E.O.C.’s Phoenix office. “I’ve been doing this for 31 years, and I’ve never seen such antipathy toward Muslim workers.”

Although Muslims make up less than 2 percent of the United States population, they accounted for about one-quarter of the 3,386 religious discrimination claims filed with the E.E.O.C. last year. Complaints filed by Jews rose slightly in fiscal 2009, while complaints filed by Catholics, Protestants, Sikhs and Seventh-day Adventists declined. Claims of race, sex and age discrimination also fell.

The rising number of complaints by Muslims, which exceeds even the amount filed in the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, comes as tensions rise between Muslim Americans and those of other faiths.

Polls have shown that many Americans feel a growing wariness toward Muslims after the 9/11 attacks and after years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mosques and Islamic community centers in the United States — most prominently one proposed near ground zero in Manhattan — have faced substantial opposition. And a Florida pastor received national attention this month for threatening to burn the Koran on Sept. 11.

“We can go back in history and find other times when there were hot emotional and political tensions over religion,” said Michael J. Zimmer, co-author of several books on employment discrimination and a law professor at Loyola University in Chicago. “Right now, there is a lot of heat as to the Muslims.”

Mohammad Kaleemuddin, a Pakistani immigrant who drove trucks for the American war effort in Iraq for three years, said that while he was working for a construction company in Houston, his supervisor and several co-workers called him “Osama,” “al Qaeda,” “Taliban,” and “terrorist.”

“It was very rough,” said Mr. Kaleemuddin, who was fired after protesting to management about the ethnic slurs. “It brought a bit of terror in my chest. I’d wonder, ‘Why are they doing this? I’ve always been nice to them.’ ”

After he filed a complaint, the E.E.O.C. sued the company he worked for, Pace Services. The company agreed last April to pay him $61,250 to settle the case.

Experts on religion and employment discrimination say many factors are behind this surge in discrimination claims.

“In America right now, there are intense concerns about many issues — immigration, the faltering economy, the interminable wars” and the erroneous belief, held by many Americans, that the first nonwhite president is Muslim, said Akbar Ahmed, a professor of Islamic studies at American University.

“In all of these, there’s one link, Islam. Islam is the lightning rod. Whenever there is a great distrust or antipathy, it spills beyond religion into public life,” the professor said.

Professor Ahmed said that Muslims in the United States were generally reluctant to stick their necks out and complain about discrimination, partly in the belief that attitudes toward them will gradually improve. But he said that growing intolerance has prompted more Muslims to stand up for their rights and file E.E.O.C. complaints.

Workers have complained of discrimination even in regions known for their diversity.

Halla Banafa filed a claim with the commission after she was turned down at age 18 for a job stocking merchandise at an Abercrombie Kids store in Milpitas, Calif., in Silicon Valley. According to the E.E.O.C., the manager made a note of “not Abercrombie look” on the interview form.

“I never imagined anyone in the Bay Area would reject me because of my head scarf,” Ms. Banafa said.

Federal law requires employers to accommodate head scarves, also called hijabs, as well as prayer breaks and other practices based on sincere religious beliefs unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer.

“Abercrombie just decided they’re not going to comply with the law requiring religious accommodation,” said William R. Tamayo, regional attorney of the commission’s San Francisco office. “Their intolerance is off the charts.” Last year, the commission also sued Abercrombie for refusing to hire a 17-year-old wearing a hijab at a store in Tulsa, Okla.

Ronald A. Robins Jr., Abercrombie’s general counsel, said the company disputed both claims, adding that the retailer “makes every reasonable attempt to accommodate the religious practices of associates and applicants, including, when appropriate, allowing associates to wear a hijab.”

In 2004, Abercrombie agreed to pay $40 million to settle an E.E.O.C. lawsuit charging it with racial bias against Asian, black and Hispanic employees, many of whom said they had been steered to low-visibility, back-of-the-store jobs.

At Swift, the meatpacker, the charge of discrimination dates back to 2008, when Somali workers complained that the restroom had profanity-laced anti-Muslim graffiti, that their prayer breaks were often interrupted and that the company would not move their meal breaks to right after sundown during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the day. After Muslim employees staged a walkout, the company fired all the protesters, the commission said.

Chandler Keys, a Swift spokesman, declined to discuss the lawsuit, but said that since 2008, the company has had no similar incidents. “We’ve worked closely and diligently with the East African community and other groups to avoid a recurrence of such problems,” he said.

Sometimes sharp disputes arise over whether employers have done enough to accommodate Muslim employees.

Imane Boudlal, a 26-year-old from Casablanca, Morocco, had worked for two years as a hostess at the Storytellers Cafe at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., when she decided she would begin wearing her hijab at work during Ramadan last month. Ms. Boudlal said her supervisors told her that if she insisted on wearing the scarf, she could work either in back or at a telephone job. She refused and has not worked while the dispute continues.

Disney officials said her head scarf clashed with the restaurant’s early-1900s theme, and they proposed a period hat with some scarf that would fall over her ears. Ms. Boudlal rejected that as un-Muslim. “They wanted to hide the fact that I looked Muslim,” she said.

Michael Griffin, a Disney spokesman, said the company’s “cast members” agree to comply with its appearance guidelines. “When cast members request exceptions to our policies for religious reasons, we strive to make accommodations,” he said, adding that Disney has accommodated more than 200 such requests since 2007.

martes, 21 de septiembre de 2010

Vatican Bank Tied to Money Laundering Scandal

By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: September 21, 2010

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ROME — Italian monetary authorities said Tuesday that they had impounded $30 million from the Vatican bank and placed its top two officers under investigation in connection with a money laundering inquiry. The announcement amounted to another potential storm confronting the papacy of Benedict XVI, who is struggling with the effects of a priestly abuse scandal.

In a statement, the Vatican expressed “perplexity and surprise” that the bank’s chairman, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, and its director general, Paolo Cipriani, had been placed under investigation. It added that it had the “greatest trust” in the two men and had been working for greater transparency in its finances.

The investigation is the first into the Vatican bank since the early 1980’s, when it was implicated in the collapse of an Italian bank whose director, nicknamed “God’s banker,” was mysteriously found dead, hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London.

Italian authorities have historically shied away from investigating the Vatican’s finances — as much out of deference to the church as owing to the complex relationship betweenItaly and the Holy See, a sovereign state.

“The era of omertà is over,” said Gianluigi Nuzzi, the author of the 2009 bestseller “Vaticano S.P.A.,” using the Italian term for the code of silence. S.P.A. stands for limited liability corporation in Italian.

The investigation was undertaken because of a new directive by the Bank of Italy. Aimed at preventing financing of terrorist groups and money laundering, it now requires all foreign banks operating in Italy — including the Vatican Bank — to provide detailed information about the origins of the money it transfers.

Officials said that Mr. Gotti Tedeschi and Mr. Cipriani were under investigation for having failed adequately to explain the origins of funds transferred from one account held by the Vatican Bank to two others it holds. They said the seizure was preventive and neither man had been formally charged or placed under arrest. In the coming months, a judge is expected to rule on whether to proceed with the investigation.

The investigation could potentially blight the record of Mr. Gotti Tedeschi, a well-respected banker and a former head of operations in Italy for Spain’s Banco Santander who was brought in by the pope last year to help clean up the murky finances of the Vatican bank, a private bank formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion, or IOR, which manages funds aimed at charitable activities.

The new investigation appeared more mundane but no less explosive.

Officials said they had opened the investigation on Monday after the Bank of Italy, adhering to anti-money-laundering directives, alerted them to two suspicious transfers on Sept. 6 from an account held by the Vatican bank at a Rome branch of Credito Artigiano S.P.A., a bank based in Northern Italy.

One transfer of $26 million was directed to an account held by the Vatican bank at a Frankfurt branch of the U.S. bank J.P. Morgan, and another of $4 million was directed at an account it held at a Rome branch of the Banca di Fucino.

Under Italian law, magistrates are required to open an investigation if there is a suspicion that a crime may have been committed. Magistrates in Rome opened the investigation because the accounts in question were in bank branches in Rome.

News reports last year said that the same magistrates had opened up a broader investigation last year into bank accounts held by Vatican officials and charitable entities in Rome banks.

In both cases, investigators bypassed the sovereignty of the Holy See by looking into Italian accounts that had received funds from the Vatican Bank.

In a statement, the Holy See said it expressed “perplexity and surprise at the initiative taken by the Rome court, considering that all the necessary data were already made available to the competent office at the Bank of Italy and similar operations are ongoing with other Italian credit institutions.”

It added that the funds were transfers originating within the Vatican bank itself, and that the bank was working to join the “white list” of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the highest ranking on its transparency charts.

In the early 1980’s, the Vatican bank was involved in a scandal at Italy’s Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans to companies in Latin America. The Vatican bank denied wrongdoing but paid $250 million to Banco Ambrosiano’s creditors.

The new investigation appeared to show a more aggressive stance by the Bank of Italy, a player in the complex power dynamics of contemporary Italy. “It has a central role, whereas before it had a subaltern role,” Mr. Nuzzi said.

A spokeswoman for the Bank of Italy said it had been acting under European Uniondirectives.

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