Salem-News Human Ambassador Program Expanding Successfully in Asia

Due to William Gomes and Salem-News.com, Human Rights violators increasingly fear being exposed.

Salem-News.com's Human Rights Ambassador, William Nicholas Gomes, truly a man of peace, hails from Bangladesh.

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - He's making life tough for the people who scoff at legal structures designed to prevent torture, arbitrary detainment and arrest, and a host of other international law violations.

Salem-News has in William Nicholas Gomes, the prototype of a refined, polished 21^st Century Human Rights champion fighter. 'Fighter' is no stretch either.

In fact there is no end to the battle for Human Rights and every person who finds a reason not to care is failing to aid others who are in need, unlike Mr. Gomes.

It is a fight because the people we oppose are a bunch of dirty animals and criminals whether they are politicians, police, military, or badge wearing thugs. They drive tanks and salute and stand at attention while their fellow citizens are forced to fear the worst conditions in some cases, ever known to mankind.

Unlike the politically oriented war on Iraq, this is a war where, "You are with us or you are against us" and in my humble opinion, not one human being is right if they're not with us.

The powers that oversee the abuse of human righs are always well funded, in comparison to their victims. They have the money and they have the guns and they have the ability and willingness to hurt and kill those who oppose them. The war we and others fight against inhumanity, has far fewer tools and far less support than the wars against mankind which are so much more common.

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The document that defines the parameters in this game is the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was drafted by a new United Nations in the wake of the most costly war this earth has ever witnessed.

The Holocaust had wiped out huge sections of Poland and Russians and ethnic groups like Jews and Roma were targeted along with academics and playwrights and journalists and activists. The first people they went after were outspoken humanitarians like Mr. Gomes and myself.

So soon it seems, we forget. These words attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) addressed the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Americans have been so busy persecuting others who don't resemble the cast from the TV show 'Happy Days' that we lost track of who we are and what we are supposed to be.

America for years it seems, has needed a perpetual enemy. 'Kraut' and 'Nip' became 'Communist' then 'terrorist' - now 'activist' - and justifies its eternally growing police and military budgets with fear of these real and perceived enemies and 'threats to national security'.

The nation has experienced terrible politicians and morals continually decline as Americans scratch to keep up in what will probably one day soon become a police state. I didn't used to believe such things.

In the meanwhile, William Gomes will continue to do what is right and sadly, that is in my opinion, largely tied to the fact that is is not an American. I would like to be wrong about that, nothing is ever absolute and there are always exceptions, but William has seen and experienced things most people will never get close to.

Background on William Gomes

In media for more than twenty years, I rarely if ever have seen the intuition that I see in William Gomes. He is such an international man, and he is making much headway.

William was designated to be our 'Human Rights Ambassador' and that is entirely appropriate because his role goes far beyond that of simply being a journalist or activist. His personal and public contact of national and sometimes stated and district officials, puts them on notice and these officials are increasingly responding to William's calls for responsibility.

The simple truth is that governments of nations like Pakistan are huge and the top officials don't always know what lower level officials are doing in the name of police wor, detainment, and other practices. Some officials in smaller districts and villages are the big cheese where they live and they get away with murder, but then we cover an incident in these places, and suddenly those lower level officials begin receiving phone calls from their superiors.

These situations keep happening over and over again because of Mr. William Gomes who lives a very meager life and receives little to no compensation for his efforts. I hope people reading this will make donations to William, his information is at the bottom of this report. I laugh at myself considering the people on TV begging for money and collectively, we have had a hard time getting people to donate winter clothing to Mr. Gomes who is a native of Bangladesh.

Speaking of Bangladesh, lest we forget that this champion of Human Rights potentially faces a charge of 'Sedition' in Bangladesh if he were to return, because of a poem he wrote titled, 'Anti_State' that conveyed his feelings about his national government which he believes does very little to help sustain the greater population.

Bangladesh even shut down William's Website due to his poem. Regarding the act of censorship and politically charged poem, Professor Noam Chomsky told William. Gomes, "Very sorry to hear about the blocking of your site, surely an intolerable act. Very powerful words"

Very much like Chomsky, time and time again, William Gomes has written reports and open letters that brought direct response from government officials in both Pakistan and Bangladesh. His journalism led to a land activist being relieved from torture at the hands of Pakistani special police (ISI) and his research helped expose the source of a media rumor about an affair the foreign minister of Pakistan, Hina Rabbani Khar, was allegedly involved in.

William also was one of the first to break the story in the U.S. of the little girl 'Rimsha' who was falsely accused of burning pages of the Holy Qur'an which became a huge national incident covered successively in great detail by our Pakistan-based reporter Shamim Masih here on Salem-News.

These are just two instances and they are part of a growing list.

Our Web ranking makes it impossible for people to escape the wrath of their own actions once we publish their names. People are sometimes exposed as human rights violators photos and all literally overnight. William Gomes has his finger on the pulse of this world. He is a magnet for Human Rights violation reports. He works closely with groups like 'Front Line Defenders' who are diehard human rights activists intent on helping others, often at the risk of great harm to themselves.

He wrote to me today:

"The human rights ambassador for Salem-News.com is on the main stream, we have joined 73 groups including:

Amnesty International Malaysia
Amnesty International Philippines
Amnesty International Thailand
Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN)

While William champions causes all over the world, our team has paid particular attention to Sri Lanka, India and Myanmar for some time. It leads to large segments of viewership from all over Asia. Indeed, we are all helping each other out the best that we can and never does a moment pass that I don't appreciate the people who make this group function and our reputation as human rights defenders thrive, it is Mr. William Nicholas Gomes who is at the heart of this for our group and he will not be stopping any time soon!

Donate to Support William's Human Rights Stories; donate through PayPal

Donate to: williamgomes.org@gmail.com

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu.

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)