After immigration law and now Arizona will faces boycott calls

PHOENIX Civil rights leaders are urging organizations to cancel their conventions in Arizona. Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks are encountering protesters on the road. And the AriZona iced tea company wants everyone to know that its drinks are made in New York.Arizona is facing a backlash over its new law cracking on illegal immigrants, with opponents pushing for a tourism boycott like the one that was used to punish the state 20 years ago over its refusal to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with a holiday.”The goal is to as quickly as possible bring to a shocking stop the economy of Arizona,” former state Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez said Friday as a coalition called Boycott Arizona announced its formation.

The outcry has grown steadily in the week since Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the nation’s toughest law against illegal immigration. The measure makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally, and directs local police to question people about their immigration status and demand to see their documents if there is reason to suspect they are illegal.Many in Arizona support the law amid growing anger over the federal government’s failure to secure the border. The state has become a major gateway for drug smuggling and human trafficking from Mexico.

Critics say the law will lead to racial profiling and other abuses, and they are giving Arizona a public relations beating over the issue.Groups have called on people not to fly Tempe-based US Airways, rent trucks from Phoenix-based U-Haul or go to Suns and Diamondbacks games. A New York congressman and others are urging major league baseball to move the 2011 All Star Game out of Phoenix.

The Major League Baseball players’ union opposes the new law, issuing a statement Friday expressing concern it could have a negative impact on hundreds of ballplayers and their families. The union will consider taking “additional steps” if the law goes into effect this summer.The cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles have talked of cutting off deals with the state and its businesses.Phoenix is vying for the 2012 Republican National Convention, and at least one mayor has called on political leaders to choose a different city.

About 40 immigrant rights activists gathered outside Wrigley Field in Chicago on Thursday, chanting, “Boycott Arizona” as the Diamondbacks opened a series against the Cubs. A small plane pulling a banner criticizing the law circled the stadium.Civil rights leaders from the Rev. Al Sharpton to Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa have pushed for a boycott.Turning the tables on the state, the Mexican government warned citizens to use extreme caution when visiting Arizona.With all things Arizona now under attack, the AriZona Beverage Co. evidently feared business would suffer. The iced tea company tweeted: “AriZona is and always has been a NY based company! (BORN IN BKLYN ’92)”

Fifteen million people visit Arizona each year for vacations, conventions and sporting events such as the Fiesta Bowl, pro golf tournaments and baseball spring training. The state tourism office estimated that conventions and other travel and tourist spending in Arizona brought in $18.5 billion in 2008.Some companies said the call for a boycott has had no noticeable effect, although Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said he has heard of six events being canceled. One of the groups to pull out is the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which canceled a fall conference to be held at a Scottsdale resort.

“We knew that the governor had this bill sitting on her desk,” spokesman George Tzamaras said. “Literally, minutes after she signed it the board of governors convened a conference call, and by an almost unanimous vote the association decided to pull that meeting.”The prospect of a boycott unnerves Arizona tourism officials.”We’re worried about keeping every convention and meeting here in Phoenix. It’s an economic driver here in the state; it provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and a good economic boost to the state,” said Doug MacKenzie, spokesman for the Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau.MacKenzie said he has heard of five or six event cancellations, adding, “I think it’s misguided to bring the tourism industry into the crosshairs of this political issue.”

In 1990, Arizona voters’ rejection of a King holiday set off a cascade of cancellations of conventions and other events. The NFL pulled the 1993 Super Bowl from the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. The NBA told the Phoenix Suns not to bother putting in a bid for the All-Star game.By the time voters finally passed a holiday bill two years later, estimates of lost convention business in the Phoenix area alone topped $190 million.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who surprised many by reversing course and supporting the new immigration law, said the latest furor and the King dustup are completely different.”One was about honoring a civil rights hero who a majority of Americans held in extremely high esteem,” he said. “The other is about an issue of national security and the security of our citizens, where we have broken borders and are literally overwhelmed with both human smuggling and drugs.”

The governor’s spokesman, Paul Senseman, said boycotts are a foolish response when opponents can mount a legal challenge or try to repeal the law in a referendum.”A boycott is not only the least effective but the most discriminatory and harmful method to utilize when there are other methods in our democratic process that are readily available,” he said.(AP)

PHOENIX,Lawsuits challenge new Arizona immigration law

PHOENIX  Anger mounted Thursday over an Arizona law cracking down on illegal immigration as a police officer filed one of the first lawsuits challenging the law and activists gathered outside an Arizona Diamondbacks game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, chanting “Boycott Arizona.”The lawsuit from 15-year Tucson police veteran Martin Escobar is one of two filed Thursday, less than a week after Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law that’s sparked fears it will lead to racial profiling despite the governor’s vow that officers will be properly trained.U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the federal government may challenge the law, which requires local and state law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally, and makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally.Escobar, an overnight patrol officer in a heavily Latino area of Tucson, argues there’s no way for officers to confirm people’s immigration status without impeding investigations, and that the new law violates numerous constitutional rights.

Tucson police spokesman Sgt. Fabian Pacheco said Escobar is acting on his own, not on behalf of the department.The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders also filed a lawsuit Thursday, and is seeking an injunction preventing authorities from enforcing the law. The group argues federal law pre-empts state regulation of national borders, and that Arizona’s law violates due process rights by letting police detain suspected illegal immigrants before they’re convicted.

“Mexican-Americans are not going to take this lying down,” singer Linda Ronstadt, a Tucson native, said at a state Capitol news conference on another lawsuit planned by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Immigration Law Center.At least three Arizona cities  Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson are considering legal action to block the law. In Flagstaff, police are investigating a threatening e-mail sent to members of the city council over their opposition to the law. The author said council members should be “arrested, tried in court, found guilty of treason and hanged from the nearest tree!”

About 40 immigrant rights activists gathered outside Wrigley Field in Chicago Thursday as the Cubs open a four-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. A small plane toting a banner criticizing the law circled the stadium, and activist George Lieu said they’ve sent a letter to Cubs management asking them to stop holding spring training in Arizona.A Cubs spokesman declined to comment. Arizona manager A.J. Hinch says the team is there to play baseball.

On Wednesday, a group filed papers to launch a referendum drive that could put the law on hold until 2012, when voters could decide whether it is repealed.The legislation’s chief sponsor, Republican Rep. Russell Pearce, said he has no doubt voters will support the new law at the ballot box, which would then protect it from repeal by the Legislature. In Arizona, measures approved by voters can only be repealed at the ballot box.

Meanwhile, the effect of the law continued to ripple beyond Arizona.A group of conservative state lawmakers in Oklahoma are considering pushing a bill similar to Arizona’s. In Texas, Rep. Debbie Riddle, a Republican, said she will introduce a measure similar to the Arizona law in the January legislative session. And Republicans running for governor in Colorado and Minnesota expressed support for the crackdown. “I’d do something very similar” if elected,” Former Rep. Scott McInnis, told KHOW-AM radio in Denver.

Denver Public Schools is banning work-related travel to Arizona. Even though school employees are in the country legally, DPS spokesman Kristy Armstrong said officials don’t want them to be “subjected to that kind of scrutiny and search.Retired South African archbishop Desmond Tutu also chimed in, saying he supports the idea of a boycott of Arizona businesses, according to a letter he wrote that was posted Wednesday onTheCommunity.com, a website for Nobel peace laureates that promotes peace and human rights.

“I recognize that Arizona has become a widening entry point for illegal immigration from the South … but a solution that degrades innocent people, or that makes anyone with broken English a suspect, is not a solution,” Tutu saidColombian singer Shakira planned to visit Phoenix on Thursday to meet with the city’s police chief and mayor over her concerns that the law would lead to racial profiling.(Ap)

Germany's Catholic Church apologized to victims of child abuse by priests and said after meeting Pope Benedict

The head of Germany’s Catholic Church apologized to victims of child abuse by priests and said after meeting Pope Benedict Friday the pontiff encouraged him to press ahead with tackling the problem.Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops’ Conference, said the German Church was taking steps to investigate numerous allegations of abuse in Catholic institutions, to counsel victims and to prevent a recurrence.

“The German bishops are dismayed by what has happened and the acts of violence against children,” Zollitsch said after the 45-minute private audience. “A few weeks ago I asked forgiveness from the victims, something which I must repeat today in Rome.”

Zollitsch said he had briefed Benedict about the situation in Germany, where more than 100 reports have emerged of abuse at Catholic institutions, including one linked to the prestigious Regensburg choir run by the Pope’s brother from 1964-1994.

“With great shock, keen interest and deep sadness, the Holy Father took note of what I had to say,” Zollitsch told a news conference, adding that he had not specifically discussed the Regensburg choir with the pope.

“I informed the Holy Father of the measures which we are adopting and I am grateful to him for encouraging me to continue with the adoption of these measures in a decisive and courageous manner,” he said. “We want to bring the truth to light.”

Zollitsch, the head of Germany’s 26 million Catholics, noted the German child abuse scandal was not limited to the Church alone. He thanked the German government for convening a round-table on the issue for April 23 grouping Catholic and Protestant representatives, civil groups, teachers and victims.(Reuters)

2nd Irish bishop quitting over Dublin report abuse

Bishop Donal Murray

DUBLIN  A second Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland announced Wednesday he will resign in the wake of a damning investigation into decades of church cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese.Bishop Jim Moriarty revealed his decision to priests and other church officials in his diocese of Kildare and Leithlin, southwest of Dublin. Church officials said Moriarty planned to travel soon to Rome to tender his resignation directly to Pope Benedict XVI, who has sole power to hire and fire bishops.Moriarty said he accepted the investigators’ finding that he failed to react properly when told about abuse cases, particularly of one priest convicted of molesting girls in 1997. But he insisted that his own inaction reflected his colleagues’ poor communication and secrecy.”It does not serve the truth to overstate my responsibility and authority within the archdiocese. Nor does it serve the truth to overlook the fact that the system of management and communications was seriously flawed,” Moriarty said in a prepared statement.

“However, with the benefit of hindsight, I accept that, from the time I became an auxiliary bishop, I should have challenged the prevailing culture.”Last week Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick resigned, becoming the first high-profile casualty of a government-ordered probe into the church’s failure to tell authorities about more than 170 suspected child abusers in the Dublin priesthood.

That 720-page report, published Nov. 26, examined the cases of 46 pedophile priests in detail. It found that church leaders in Dublin chronically shielded these priests from the law for decades until 1995, when growing public anger over the practice forced the church to begin handing its files on some cases to police.

Abuse victims welcomed Wednesday’s resignation announcement – but emphasized that they believe three other serving bishops named in the report must quit too.”It is immensely distressing and insulting to survivors of sexual abuse to be forced to listen as one bishop after another justifies his position and attempts to hold on to power until he is shamed into resigning,” said Maeve Lewis, director of an abuse-victims support group called One in Four.

“The bishops do not seem to understand the depravity of the culture that prevailed, and the horror inflicted on countless children,” she said. “Ultimately, the resignations of all the auxiliary bishops named in the report are inevitable.”Moriarty, who served as a Dublin auxiliary bishop from 1991 to 2002, initially insisted he’d done nothing wrong. “I do not consider that there are any grounds there upon which I should resign from office,” he said Dec. 10.

But Moriarty changed that line after senior church figures met Benedict in Rome that same day, and Murray announced his resignation.The report found Moriarty guilty of inaction in the face of abuse complaints, particularly involving the Rev. Paul McGennis.The investigators’ search of Dublin church records discovered that the church began keeping internal records of McGennis’ pedophilia as early as 1960, when he was caught taking pictures of naked girls.

The report found that Moriarty received renewed abuse reports against McGennis in 1993 but did nothing. McGennis was convicted in 1997 of abusing two girls and served half of an 18-month prison sentence.The investigators determined that church leaders, including Moriarty, made no attempt to check its own past files on McGennis. “Bishop Moriarty pointed out to the commission that he did not have access to the archives, but he could have asked the archbishop to conduct a search,” the report said.Moriarty is 73, two years short of the church’s mandatory retirement age. Five other past Dublin bishops identified in the report have already retired, while several others are dead.

BAGHDAD A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men

Shiite Muslim men

BAGHDAD  A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men and damaged the historic building Wednesday, a day before Christmas Eve services that will be heavily guarded for fear of more attacks on the country’s Christian minority.The bomb in the city of Mosul was hidden under sacks of baking flour in a handcart left 15 yards (meters) from the Mar Toma Church, or the Church of St. Thomas, a police officer said.

The officer said the two men killed were Muslims and that five other people were injured. A hospital official confirmed the casualties.Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to news media.

“Instead of performing Christmas Mass in this church, we will be busy removing rubble and debris,” Hazim Ragheed, a priest at the church, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.The blast damaged the wooden doors, windows, some furniture and one of the walls of the church, which is more than 1,200 years old, Ragheed said. Services will be moved out of the church, but Ragheed did not say where they would be held.

“We demand that the government put an end to these repeated attacks,” Ragheed said.The blast occurred in an area where streets have been closed to cars and trucks to protect Mosul’s dwindling Christian population.

Iraqi defense officials warned earlier in the week that intelligence reports pointed to attacks during Christmas, leading the government to step up security near churches and Christian neighborhoods.Most of the increased security will be in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, said Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari.

Christians have frequently been targeted since turmoil swept the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, although the attacks have ebbed with an overall drop in violence. Still, tens of thousands of Christians have fled; many who stayed were isolated in neighborhoods protected by barricades and checkpoints.A coordinated bombing campaign in 2004 targeted churches in the Iraqi capital and anti-Christian violence also flared in September 2007 after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be against Islam.

Churches, priests and businesses have been attacked by militants who denounce Christians as pro-American “crusaders.” Paulos Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, was found dead in March 2008 after being abducted by gunmen after a Mass.

Also Wednesday, Iraqi forces increased security around the Shiite religious observance of Ashoura, which coincides with Christmas.Insurgents have routinely targeted pilgrims on their way to the southern holy city of Karbala during Ashoura, which marks the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein.More than 25,000 Iraqi police and soldiers have been assigned to protect pilgrims, said Karbala police Capt. Alaa Abbas Jaafar, a media spokesman.

Elsewhere, gunmen stormed a checkpoint Wednesday in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, killing four Iraqi police officers, two police officials said.

A bomb planted on a minibus killed two people and injured five in a Shiite neighborhood in north Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Another bomb in Fallujah targeted an Anbar University professor but missed and killed the man’s brother, police said.