Word: brutality
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this month about how vicious the country's political right once was. Last week saw the reburial ceremony for Victor Jara, a popular 20th century Chilean folksinger. His remains were exhumed recently to help determine just how he was killed in 1973, after he had been arrested by the brutal right-wing dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990. (An autopsy revealed that Jara was tormented in a game of Russian roulette and then executed by machine-gun fire.) This week, a Chilean judge ruled that former President Eduardo Frei Montalva, a Pinochet opponent who died...
...uprising, which has left four Mapuche dead and more than 100 arrested or convicted, has also spawned a political quandary for President Michelle Bachelet. She has resorted to a controversial antiterrorist law - developed during the brutal, 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet - to prosecute Mapuche militants. The measure, used by Pinochet to hound political opponents, allows fewer pretrial rights for defendants, who can be accused by anonymous and masked witnesses. It also imposes longer prison sentences and augments the powers of the police and judicial system - never a comfortable prospect in a country that is still shaking the ironfisted...
...raid revealed a brutal paradox. Large-scale crackdowns like this one are rare precisely because the dogfighting business mistreats so many dogs. Busting a breeder means taking custody of the dogs, yet no police department or sheriff's office has the resources to kennel, treat and attempt to rehabilitate dozens, let alone hundreds, of abused animals. Indeed, this raid could not have happened without the extraordinary cooperation of the Humane Society of Missouri. Supported by animal-protection agencies and volunteers from across the country, the society equipped an empty warehouse with hundreds of wire pens to hold the victims, recruited...
...Shabab's members are very clear about their objective: to overthrow Somalia's government and enact the strict Islamic law known as Shari'a. The group has banned music, videos, shaving and even bras in the areas it controls and maintains control through often brutal methods. Women accused of adultery are publicly stoned to death; teenaged thieves have had their limbs severed; one Somali said his brother was killed simply for selling phone cards to Ethiopian troops. Although Somalia is a majority Muslim nation, its faith has traditionally been far more moderate; the repressive al-Shabab is viewed by most...
More than a year after Russia and Georgia clashed in a short but brutal war, the two countries are continuing their dispute on the movie screen. Russian filmmakers have already released a slick documentary as well as a romantic feature that depicts Georgia as a genocidal aggressor. Now, the Georgian government is supporting Renny Harlin, the Hollywood director who made Die Hard 2, for its own take on the conflict, complete with Andy Garcia as the embattled Georgian President standing up to Russian tanks...