Outrage in India Over Fashion Shoot Mimicking Delhi Gang Rape and Murder

The photo shoot features a model being groped by a group of men on a bus

An Indian fashion shoot showing a woman being groped on a bus has caused anger, with social media users saying it glamorises the 2012 Delhi gang rape.

Photographer Raj Shetye's images show a model fighting off men on a bus, in a scene reminiscent of the rape and murder that shocked India.

Many social media users said they found the photos "disgusting" and "horrible".

Mr Shetye said the shoot was "just a depiction of the situation of women in our country" and not based on the rape. Or is it a depiction of the attitudes of men in India?

The photos were taken down from the Behance site after angry reactions on Twitter and Facebook.

The gang rape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student - dubbed Nirbhaya (fearless) by the media - led to days of protests and forced the authorities to introduce tough new anti-rape laws.

Four men were sentenced to death. A fifth, a juvenile at the time of the crime, is serving a three-year sentence.

Mr Shetye, a Mumbai-based photographer, published his photofeature The Wrong Turn last week, prompting widespread criticism on social media.

"Did I just see a fashion-spread depicting the Delhi gang rape of Nirbhaya? Disgusting! I hope all associated, die of shame! Insensitive swine!," Bollywood music director Vishal Dadlani tweeted. "Whoever you are... I hope you go to jail for this," he added.

The fashion photos were removed from the site hosting them after criticism on social media

Actor Amrita Puri tweeted: "Rape is not inspiration for a fashion shoot. I don't know what the photographer was thinking doing an editorial shoot inspired by Nirbhaya."

"Raj Shetye, photographer, came up with a bus-rape inspired shoot. How much lower before we hit hell?" wrote Ceteris Paritosh on Twitter. Indeed, it's an indication of how far India has to go to rise above the rape culture that has existed for so long.

Myra called it "beyond disgusting" and said the photo shoot "Trivialises Sexual Assault Through 'The Wrong Turn'.

Mr Shetye did not immediately respond to BBC attempts to contact him, but in a report published on BuzzFeed.com on Tuesday, he denied that he had attempted to recreate the infamous gang rape.

"It is not based on Nirbhaya," he said. "But being a part of society and being a photographer, that topic moves me from inside... I stay in a society where my mother, my girlfriend, my sister are out there and something like this can happen to them also."

Mr Shetye said he was not trying to "glamorise the act, which was very bad".

"It's just a way of throwing light on it," he said, adding that it could happen to anyone, rich or poor.

He said the clothes worn by the models had all been made by top designers, but none had been credited publicly because the shoot was not for commercial gain. Or was it because the designers wanted nothing to do with your perverse work?

Microsoft Tip Leads to Child Porn Arrest in Pennsylvania

Not to be out-done by Google's naming of a child porn user, Microsoft has jumped on-board.

Microsoft's terms and conditions say it has the right to scan images in users' accounts

A tip-off from Microsoft has led to the arrest of a man in Pennsylvania who has been charged with receiving and sharing child abuse images.

It flagged the matter after discovering that an image involving a young girl had been allegedly saved to the man's OneDrive cloud storage account.

According to court documents, the man was subsequently detected trying to send two illegal pictures via one of Microsoft's live.com email accounts.

Police arrested him on 31 July.

The man, in his twenties, has since been placed in a county correctional facility and has yet to enter a plea. A preliminary court appearance is scheduled for next week.

A copy of the affidavit detailing the case against the defendant has been published online by a news site specialising in leaked law enforcement documents.

It claims that the man acknowledged acquiring the pictures through Kik Messenger, a chat app, as well as "trading and receiving images of child pornography on his mobile cellular device".

The BBC spoke to one of the officers involved, Trooper Christopher Hill from the Pennsylvania State Police, who confirmed the affidavit was genuine and that Microsoft had instigated the investigation.

Illegal images were allegedly found on the man's OneDrive cloud storage account

But he said he could not discuss any of the case's specifics because it was still an "open investigation".

He did, however, add that he was aware of other instances of "internet carriers" passing on similar details in other inquiries.

Automated image scans

The details have emerged a week after it was first reported that Google had handed over the identity of a Texas-based user after detecting suspected child abuse imagery in his Gmail account. The 41-year-old was arrested as a consequence of Google's action.

The cases highlight the fact that commonly-used internet services are not private.

One campaign group said tech firms must be explicit about how they monitor users' accounts.

"Microsoft must do all that it can to inform users about what proactive action it takes to monitor and analyse messages for illegal content, including details of what sorts of illegal activity may be targeted," commented Emma Carr, acting director of the campaign group Big Brother Watch.

"It is also important that all companies who monitor messages in this way are very clear about what procedures and safeguards are in place to ensure that people are not wrongly criminalised, for instance, when potentially illegal content is shared but has been done so legitimately in the context of reporting or research."

Microsoft's terms and conditions for its US users explicitly state that it has the right to deploy "automated technologies to detect child pornography or abusive behaviour that might harm the system, our customers, or others".

Google Data Centre

Neither Google nor Microsoft handed over the material directly to the police.

Instead both companies contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline, which serves as the US's centralised reporting system for suspected child sexual exploitation.

Microsoft has openly discussed its use of image-processing software to detect suspected paedophiles in the past, including an interview with the BBC in 2012.

Following the most recent case, Mark Lamb from the company's Digital Crimes Unit released a statement.

"Child pornography violates the law as well as our terms of service, which makes clear that we use automated technologies to detect abusive behaviour that may harm our customers or others," he wrote.

"In 2009, we helped develop PhotoDNA, a technology to disrupt the spread of exploitative images of children, which we report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as required by law."

PhotoDNA creates a unique signature for each image, similar to a fingerprint, to help pictures be matched.

This is done by converting the picture into black-and-white, resizing it and breaking it into a grid. Each grid cell is then analysed to create a histogram describing how the colours change in intensity within it, and the information obtained becomes its "DNA".

The technique means that if a copy of a flagged photo appears in one of Microsoft's user's accounts, the firm can be alerted to the fact without its staff having to look at the picture involved.

Because the amount of data involved in the "DNA" is small, Microsoft can process and compare images relatively quickly.

"[It] allows us to find the needle in the haystack," says promotional material for the software.

Google also uses PhotoDNA, alongside its own in-house technologies, to detect child abuse images,

In addition, the software is used by Facebook and Twitter, among others.

This is all good but the vast majority of kiddie-porn does not dwell in public places, so this surveillance by internet providers will not make a significant difference, but even a small difference is a blessing in child-pornography.

Father of Surrogate Child with Down's Syndrome a Paedophile

PERTH, Australia: An Australian father accused of abandoning his Down’s syndrome baby has convictions for child sex offences, reports said on Tuesday, as the surrogate mother said she was willing to take back the boy’s twin sister if the allegations were true.

The revelations came as the man and his wife claimed the Thai woman who gave birth to Gammy had misled the world over what happened. 

The couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have come under heavy criticism for apparently rejecting the boy at birth and taking only his healthy twin sister back to their home in Bunbury, south of Perth, from Thailand.

Australian Associated Press said court documents show that a man, believed to be Gammy’s 56-year-old father, was convicted for sexually molesting three girls. 

State broadcaster ABC added that he was jailed for sexually molesting two girls under the age of 10 when he was in his 20s. He was also accused in 1997 of another six charges of indecently dealing with a child. 

Other reports said child protection services had been called in to investigate his “suitability”, although they were unable to confirm this and police had no comment.

The surrogate mother, Pattaramon Chanbua, has insisted she will raise seven-month-old Gammy after saying the biological parents at first requested an abortion and then walked away when they learned of his condition. 

Pattaramon Chanbua and Gammy

But the Australian couple said in a statement, issued through a friend to their local newspaper the Bunbury Mail, the allegations were false and they did not know he had Down’s syndrome, although they were aware he had a congenital heart problem. 

“Gammy was very sick when he was born and the biological parents were told he would not survive and he had a day, at best, to live and to say goodbye,” the friend, a woman, told the newspaper, without saying who told them this.

The birth of the twins was supposed to take place at a major international hospital in Thailand but Pattharamon went to another facility, which made the surrogacy agreement void, according to the newspaper.

This meant that the couple had no legal rights to the babies although the surrogate mother finally agreed to hand over the girl, the report said.

“The biological parents were heartbroken that they couldn’t take their boy with them and never wanted to give him up, but to stay would risk them losing their daughter also,” the friend said. She added that allegations that the couple “ignored” Gammy when they visited the hospital were untrue and they had bought gifts for both infants. 

The friend said the couple spent two months in Thailand but due to military unrest at the time felt they had no option but to leave without Gammy. “This has been absolutely devastating for them, they are on the edge,” she said.

The case has sparked fevered debate on the moral and legal grounding of international surrogacy.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Gammy case was “a tragic human situation”.

“I don’t think there would be anyone in the country who wouldn’t be really pretty cut up about what’s happening here,” he added.

While the full picture of exactly what happened in Thailand remains unclear, Pattaramon insisted she had been transparent.

American Pervert Round-up Number 5

Number of Perverts in the Priesthood is 3 Times the Number First Shared

Just a bit more than 34: Madeleine Baran of MPR reports,

“The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has acknowledged that at least 103 priests have been accused of child sexual abuse — more than three times the number previously disclosed to the public in December.

The total includes the 34 priests ‘credibly accused’ of abuse whose names Ramsey County Judge John de North ordered the archdiocese to release in December. The disclosure of the full list came in a court document cited in a hearing Monday.

Utah Man Arrested for Rape, Sodomy, and Lewdness with 5 Year Old Girl

PLEASANT GROVE -- A 61-year-old man was arrested Monday for child sex abuse after police spent several months searching for him.

Pleasant Grove police said detectives have been investigating John Woodall since June but were unable to locate him until recently. Police took him into custody Monday on suspicion of three counts of rape of a child, 12 counts of sodomy on a child and seven counts of lewdness involving a child.

Police reported during the investigation Woodall was hard to find and family members did not know where he was. He also allegedly refused to tell family members his location.

John Woodall

Detectives began their investigation in the middle of June after conducting an interview with a 6-year-old female. Police reported the victim’s disclosure was very complete and included details of what happened to her.

Police reported the alleged crimes took place in 2013 in Pleasant Grove.

Pleasant Valley Mormon Tabernacle
circa 1910

Pleasant Grove Police Department Det. Andy Torgerson said he made contact with Woodall two weeks ago and asked him to return to Utah for an interview.

“He didn’t know he was being investigated until we contacted him,” Torgerson said. “We told him to come back two weeks ago and he was interviewed Monday.”

Torgerson was unable to share details of the interview because of the ongoing investigation.

Following the interview, Woodall was arrested and booked into the Utah County Jail. His bail has been set at $50,000 cash.

Wyoming Man Sentenced to 19 Years for Child Sex Abuse

A judge sentenced an Evansville, Wyoming man to 19 years in prison Tuesday for sexually abusing teenage boys in the Casper area over the course of seven years.

Tony Lynn Winters, whom police list as originally being from Louisiana, will spend more than a decade on probation after he is released from prison.

Tony Winters

Winters, 30, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree sex abuse of a minor and one count of third-degree sexual abuse of a minor on April 29. He entered an Alford plea, meaning he does not admit to the crimes though he acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to convince a potential jury he is guilty.

Winters was originally charged with 11 sex crimes against three victims, all boys who were 14 or 15 at the time of the abuse.

One person interviewed by Casper police during their investigation said Winters hosted parties with the underage boys and supplied them alcohol before taking advantage of some of them. The incidents took place from December 2007 to 2011.

Police also said they found hundreds of images of child pornography and videos on Winters’ computer.

Natrona County Assistant District Attorney Joshua Stensaas said during the sentencing Winters had engaged in “appalling manipulation of teenage boys.”

Winters told Natrona County District Court Judge Thomas Sullins, “I want to put this behind me and move on with my life.”

Casper, Wyoming

Sullins sentenced Winters to 14 to 19 years in the penitentiary for one count of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

Winters received two suspended sentences for the other charges, one for 15 to 20 years for second-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one for 13 to 15 years for third-degree sexual abuse of a minor. In place of the suspended sentences, Winters will be on supervised probation for 12 years following his release from prison.

Sullins also ordered Winters undergo a psychosexual evaluation and counseling. Winters will be allowed to use only electronic devices approved by the court during his probation.

Nebraska Baby Sitter Charged with Child Sex Abuse

COZAD — A 38-year-old Cozad man who had been baby-sitting for two families has been charged with child sexual assault.

Lael Arpan was arrested Friday. Dawson County Jail records show Arpan remained in custody on Tuesday, pending $2 million bail. His attorney didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press.

Cozad, Nebraska

Court documents say the Cozad Police Department was contacted by two Cozad families last week. Arpan had been living with one of the families and was baby-sitting for both.

Don't use male baby-sitters people. It's just not worth the risk.

Nigerian Girls Spotted, Being Treated Well According to Intermediaries

Recent U.S. surveillance flights over northeastern Nigeria showed what appeared to be large groups of girls held together in remote locations, raising hopes among domestic and foreign officials that they are among the group that Boko Haram abducted from a boarding school in April, U.S. and Nigerian officials said.

The surveillance suggests that at least some of the 219 schoolgirls still held captive haven't been forced into marriage or sex slavery, as had been feared, but instead are being used as bargaining chips for the release of prisoners.

Rachel Daniel, 35 years old, held up a picture of her abducted daughter Rose Daniel, 17,
as her son Bukar, 7, sat beside her at her home in Maiduguri, Nigeria, in May. Reuters

The U.S. aerial imagery matches what Nigerian officials say they hear from northern Nigerians who have interacted with the Islamist insurgency: that some of Boko Haram's most famous set of captives are getting special treatment, compared with the hundreds of other girls the group is suspected to have kidnapped.

Boko Haram appears to have seen the schoolgirls as of higher value, given the global attention paid to their plight, those officials said.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who faces re-election in February, is under political pressure to secure the girls' release, with some people urging him to agree to a prisoner swap.

His government has ruled out a rescue operation, saying it is unwilling to risk the girls' lives, or a prisoner swap.

"We don't exchange innocent people for criminals. That is not in the cards," said Mr. Jonathan's spokesman, Reuben Abati, last week in an interview.

In early July, U.S. surveillance flights over northeastern Nigeria spotted a group of 60 to 70 girls held in an open field, said two U.S. defense officials.

Late last month, they spotted a set of roughly 40 girls in a different field.

When surveillance flights returned, both sets of girls had been moved. U.S. intelligence analysts say they don't have enough information to confirm whether the two groups of girls they saw are the same, they said.

They also can't say whether those groups included any of the schoolgirls the group has held since April. But U.S. and Nigerian officials said they believe they are indeed those schoolgirls.

"It's unusual to find a large group of young women like that in an open space," said one U.S. defense official. "We're assuming they're not a rock band of hippies out there camping."

A wave of intermediaries acting on their own has tried to negotiate the girls' release, Mr. Abati said, adding that the president has neither authorized nor discouraged those efforts.

Shekau

Several of those intermediaries have said Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, has ordered his fighters to treat the girls as valuable hostages—not sex slaves—one senior Nigerian security adviser said. This could be answered prayer. Please keep praying for the girls.

"He gave a directive that anybody found touching any of the girls should be killed immediately," the adviser said. "If true, it is cheering."

It would also show that Boko Haram is trying to follow an al Qaeda tactic: swapping hostages for money and political gain.

The group is accelerating its kidnapping of foreigners and politicians: Over the past two months, it has been blamed for abducting a German expatriate, 10 Chinese laborers in nearby Cameroon and the wife of Cameroon's deputy prime minister.

Boko Haram has used hostages in the past to demand the exchange of its prisoners held in both Nigeria and Cameroon, which was one of the conditions for the release of a French family from captivity last year.

Now, the group appears to be testing the bargaining power of a group of girls who had been ordinary teenagers at a school—until their abduction on the night of April 14. That night, fighters with the Islamist insurgency—which is opposed to modern education—stormed a boarding school and drove 276 girls away hours before their final exams. Fifty-seven later escaped.

The captivity of the rest became a cause célèbre, prompting a Twitter campaign, #BringBackOurGirls, that was joined by notable figures including Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton.

It also spurred Boko Haram's latest effort to get its captives released from Nigeria's crowded prisons—a long-standing grievance. Three months after seizing the girls, Boko Haram's leader, Mr. Shekau, appeared in a video demanding a prisoner exchange.

"You are saying bring back our girls," thundered the bearded gunman, before firing his AK-47 into the air. "We are saying bring back our men!"

Dozens of demonstrators still gather in the capital each day to press for the girls' freedom.

Their rallies have become a referendum on whether Nigerian women—particularly poor, young, Muslim girls—are valued by a government of mostly wealthy, elderly, Christian men.

Mr. Abati said Mr. Jonathan has worked tirelessly to win the girls' freedom. Pfft!

It isn't clear how many of the girls Boko Haram can deliver. A former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who has a history of contact with the group, has said some of the girls are likely dead or pregnant. Only about 130 of them—out of 219 missing—appeared in the sole video of the girls that Boko Haram has ever provided.

Meanwhile, the international effort to find the girls has waned: The U.S. military is now carrying out just one surveillance flight a day, mostly by manned aircraft, totaling only 35 to 40 hours a week, said U.S. defense officials, as drones have been shifted back toward other operations.

Some accounts suggest the burden of providing for scores of girls has become a point of dissension in Boko Haram's ranks.

In July, four girls and women aged 16 to 22 hid in their bedrooms as Boko Haram fighters broke into their home in the town of Damboa, they each said in an interview last week. They feared they would be kidnapped.

When their aunt, Fatima Abba, argued on their behalf, the roughly 20 Boko Haram insurgents decided not to kidnap them—and instead began to complain about the scores of schoolgirls they already have.

"They are always crying. They behave like children," Ms. Abba quoted the Boko Haram fighters as saying of the schoolgirls. "We don't want them around."

14 Year Old on Trial in Adult Court for Murdering Her Husband and Friends

Gezawa, Nigeria:  A 14-year-old girl accused of poisoning the 35-year-old man she was forced to marry was set to go on trial for murder in northern Nigeria on Monday, a case that has thrown the spotlight on the influence of Islamic law in region.

Wasila Tasi'u has also been charged with the murder of three others who allegedly ate the food laced with rat poison that she prepared and served in April this year, a week after her marriage to Umaru Sani.

Police say Tasi'u confessed to poisoning Sani and his guests at the wedding party in the village of Unguwar Yansoro village, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) outside Nigeria's second city of Kano.

"She did it because she was forced by her parents to marry a man she did not love," Kano state police spokesman Musa Magaji Majia told AFP.

Her lawyer Hussaina Aliyu rejects claims that her client made a legally valid confession.

She said Tasi'u was questioned by police without a parent or lawyer present and so any comments she may have made are inadmissable in court.

Aliyu, who works with International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), has sought to have the case transferred to a juvenile court, a bid rejected by justice officials in Kano.

"All we are saying is do justice to her. Treat the case as it is. Treat her as a child," Aliyu said.

The marriage of teenage girls to much older men is rampant in deeply conservative, mainly Muslim northern Nigeria, especially in poorer rural areas.

The region has since 2000 been under sharia Islamic law which some say does not prohibit the marriage of underage girls. It probably doesn't prohibit marriage to your camel either, but you don't see men marrying their camels. It's just a convenient excuse for pedophilia.

But Nigeria's federal, secular laws also apply in the north, creating a confusing hybrid legal system where sharia police try to work with government authorities to enforce criminal justice.

The issue of child marriage has been fiercely debated in Nigeria over the past year, sparked by a proposal from a northern lawmaker that any girl, regardless of her age, should be legally considered an adult once she is married.

That measure has not become law but the proposal was intensely criticised, including by activists in the mainly Christian south who say Nigeria should not permit any application of sharia, even in the north.

For Aliyu, the defence lawyer, this case is not a referendum on youth marriage in a Muslim society.

Rather, she argued, the primary issue is that criminal charges filed against a minor should be handled by a juvenile court.

"She is still a child," the lawyer said.

Erin's Law Passed in Connecticut Will Prevent a Lot of Child Sex Abuse

DANBURY, Connecticut, USA -- Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman was joined by state leaders, local officials, and representatives from Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services to mark the passage of Erin's Law, a statewide sexual abuse and assault awareness program.

Signed into law by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on June 11, Erin’s Law requires the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Education, and sexual abuse prevention organizations to identify or develop age-appropriate sexual abuse prevention programs to raise awareness of and prevent sexual assault for children from grades kindergarten through 12.

Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman

“Eradicating the culture of silence and isolation around sexual assault is key to protecting young people,”  Wyman said in a statement. “Governor Malloy and I are committed to the health and well-being of Connecticut’s children and teens.

Erin’s Law prioritizes efforts to give students the language and resources they need to respond to a threat or get help if they are victimized. This is important information that can help keep young people safe.”

Connecticut Boards of Education have until Oct. 1, 2015 to implement the new curricula in grades K-12, which must include education materials and reporting and response policy.

Excellent! Good for you Connecticut. The law was named after Erin Merryn -

Erin Merryn (born 1985) is an American writer and activist from Schaumburg, Illinois who advocates the prevention of child sexual abuse. Beginning in 2010,[1] she launched a campaign to pass a law that would mandate a sexual abuse prevention curriculum in schools, and has since seen it successfully passed in several states.

Erin Merryn Founder and President of Erin's Law
Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year

Merryn suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a male neighbor at ages six to eight and from a teenage cousin at ages 11 to 13. According to her personal account, she told her parents about the latter after her sister confided that she had also been abused by the same relative.

The family pressed charges, and the cousin eventually confessed to three counts of child sexual abuse. The case did not go to trial, resulting in the cousin receiving "some counseling, but no punishment".

Erin's Law has been passed in 16 states: Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Arkansas, Utah, Tennessee, Connecticut, Louisiana, South Carolina, Vermont, and Texas passed a similar law called 'Jenna's Law'.

Erin’s Law has been introduced and is pending in many more states, including:

Delaware
Georgia
Hawaii
Iowa
Kansas
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Nebraska
New York
Ohio
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Erin, you are my hero. God bless you.

Another BBC Media Personality Admits Sexually Abusing Boys

Chris Denning appeared at London's Southwark Crown Court earlier

Former BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning has pleaded guilty to a string of historical sex offences against boys.

The 73-year-old admitted 29 charges of abuse against boys aged between nine and 16, at Southwark Crown Court.

He denied 12 further charges and will face a trial beginning on 24 November at the same London court.

Denning, of Basildon in Essex, was charged as part of Operation Yewtree, which was set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal.

The offences Denning admitted were committed between 1967 and 1984.

It's almost like being a paedophile was a prerequisite to be a DJ or Announcer on BBC.

Chris Denning the first announcer heard on BBC Two
when the television channel launched in 1964

They were made up of 26 counts of indecent assault and three of indecency with a child.

The charges he denies include indecent assault, indecency with a child and more serious sexual offences.

Denning, who was first arrested by Yewtree detectives in June last year, was remanded in custody until his trial, which is expected to last up to two weeks.

He was one of the original line-up on BBC Radio 1 when the station launched in 1967.

He was also the first announcer heard on BBC Two when it took to the air in 1964.

Nigerian Army Almost as Barbaric as Boko Haram

Nigeria's army has committed atrocities in the north-east in its fight against Islamist militants belonging to Boko Haram, Amnesty International says.

The campaign group said it had seen "gruesome footage" including alleged members of the military slitting the throats of detainees.

Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency in Nigeria since 2009.

Thousands of people have been killed in a series of bombings and assassinations in the north-east and in the capital, Abuja, this year alone.

Amnesty says footage obtained from multiple sources on a trip to Borno state, in the north, "includes horrific images of detainees having their throats slit one by one and dumped in mass graves".

The perpetrators "appear to be members of the Nigerian military and the "Civilian Joint Task Force" (CJTF), state-sponsored militias," the organisation adds.

"The ghastly images are backed up by the numerous testimonies we have gathered which suggest that extrajudicial executions are, in fact, regularly carried out by the Nigerian military and CJTF," says Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty.

The Nigerian authorities say they are "deeply concerned" about the footage in circulation, adding: "That level of barbarism and impunity has no place in the Nigerian military."

Screen grab taken on 13 July 2014 from Boko Haram
video showing its leader Abubakar Shekau

Boko Haram sparked international outrage by abducting more than 200 girls from a school in Borno in April.

The group often razes homes and shops to the ground in its attacks

A boy walks past burnt shops at Ngumborum central market on 11 May 2014 at Ngala in Gamboru Ngala district, Borno State.

The incident in question involved 16 young men and boys - nine who had their throats slit and five others who were shot dead - on the same day as a Boko Haram attack on a military detention centre near Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, on 14 March this year.

Senior officers and forensic experts will investigate the footage "in order to ascertain the veracity of the claims with a view to identifying those behind such acts", Nigeria's Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Chris Olukolade, said in a statement. The Nigerian military and government are chronic liars. They are liable to pick some poor soldier out of the crowd and shoot him, then claim justice has been done.

Officers of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) patrol in the northeastern Nigerian town of Maiduguri, Borno State, on 30 April 2013.

The Nigerian army has denied previous reports of human rights abuses

Amnesty says it also has footage showing the aftermath of a Boko Haram attack on a village, where militants killed almost 100 people and destroyed dozens of homes.

Boko Haram and other armed groups were responsible for "a huge number of heinous crimes - like the abduction of the schoolgirls in Chibok more than three months ago - but the military are supposed to defend people, not to carry out further abuses themselves," says Salil Shetty.

Amnesty has called for an investigation into what it calls "the pattern of serious and systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by all sides".

Boko Haram was launched in Maiduguri in 2009, with the aim of setting up an Islamic state.

In May 2013, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in the northern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, vowing to crush the insurgency.

However the militants have stepped up attacks, killing more than 2,000 civilians this year, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Why are there still people living in northern Nigeria? They are getting slaughtered from both sides. You would think they would just leave. They could go to southern Nigeria or Abuja or emigrate. Let Boko Haram have the land with no-one left in it.

Does anyone remember the 200+ Christian girls who were kidnapped 3 and a half months ago? Does anyone have any hope they will ever be rescued? If these were American or English girls, they would have been home months ago. Please pray for a miracle for these girls.

April Jones' House of Horrors to be Demolished

The April Jones' story was very much over before I started this blog, last year, so this is the first post concerning the unfortunate child.

The house where Mark Bridger is believed to have killed five-year-old April Jones is to be demolished.

The detached cottage in Ceinws, Powys, Wales, was bought by the Welsh government for £149,000 and will be knocked down.

Bridger, 48, abducted April as she played with friends near her home in Machynlleth on 1 October 2012.

He was jailed for life in May 2013 for murdering the girl in a sexually motivated attack.

April's body has never been found, but blood and fragments of bone consistent with a young human skull were found at the house he rented. These were the only parts of April's body ever found.

April Jones had cerebral-palsy

Police believe Bridger dismembered the girl and dumped her body parts at locations in the hills, rivers and forests surrounding the house.

During the trial, the court heard how child sex abuse images were found on his laptop, along with images of children from the area. April's parents were partly responsible for search engines Google and Bing modifying their systems to block results from searches aimed at producing child abuse images.

Bridger had claimed he had run over April in his car and could not remember where he disposed of her body. But a jury found him guilty of her murder and he was jailed for life.

Five year old April suffered from Cerebral Palsy. Her disappearance set off the largest manhunt in UK history lasting more than 6 months. 

Mark Bridger was the troubled son of a London police officer (so many police officer's sons are very troubled people). On sentencing Bridger to 'life imprisonment with a whole-life tarriff' - meaning he is very unlikely to ever get out of jail; the judge called him a pathological liar and a paedophile.

Mark Bridger

On Monday, it emerged that the Welsh government had bought the house Bridger had rented for the price its owners paid for it in 2008.

April's parents Coral and Paul Jones said on their Facebook page: "The Welsh government has bought the house in Machynlleth connected to the death of our daughter, April.

"This is a huge weight off our minds, as it can now be demolished. The loss of our beautiful daughter was bad enough, but the house has been a constant reminder of the tragic events.

"Our family want to thank the Welsh government for listening to us and for understanding our need to see the house demolished."

A spokesman for the Welsh government said: "After discussions with the family, the Welsh government has purchased the property in Machynlleth connected to the death of April Jones.

"The Welsh government will now work with the local authority, the Jones family and the local community on the most appropriate future for the site, following demolition of the property."

Montgomeryshire MP Glyn Davies said: "This house witnessed a truly horrific act which shocked a small community and appalled the world. It is good news that it is to be demolished."

Police sealed off the house Bridger rented as they combed the area in a bid to find April's body