Tag Archives: Monument

Indonesia calls off operation to retrieve the bodies of almost 200 ferry victims

Relatives of missing passengers react during a visit to the location of the ferry that sank at Lake Toba in Simalungun, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 2, 2018. Antara Foto/Sigid Kurniawan/via REUTERS

By Tabita Diela

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia said on Monday it was calling off a two-week operation to retrieve the bodies of nearly 200 passengers thought to have drowned in one of the world’s deepest volcanic lakes.

The overcrowded wooden ferry capsized during a storm on June 18 in Lake Toba, which is around 450 meters (1,500 feet) deep, as travelers were heading home after the Eid holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting season.

Relatives of missing passengers of a ferry that sank at Lake Toba pray in Simalungun, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 1, 2018. Antara Foto/Sigid Kurniawan/via REUTERS

Relatives of missing passengers of a ferry that sank at Lake Toba pray in Simalungun, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 1, 2018. Antara Foto/Sigid Kurniawan/via REUTERS

Eighteen passengers survived, three were confirmed dead and nearly 200 are missing.

The operation to find the ferry and retrieve the victims has faced numerous technical and logistical hurdles – dangerous currents and cold, murky water far deeper than any scuba diver can go – in a lake that has never been completely surveyed.

Video footage taken last week using a remotely operated underwater vehicle showed human remains, motorcycles and ropes from the ferry at a depth of 450 meters.

Rescue spokesman Muhammad Yusuf Latif confirmed that the search operation would end, adding that an official statement would likely be made on Tuesday.

“We’ve already had face-to-face discussions with the families of the victims (on) the difficulties faced in the field (and) reasons why we won’t continue; why we want to end it,” Latif said by telephone.

“They understand why we’re stopping.”

According to Muhammad Ilyas, head of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology, the wreckage was found on Saturday, but the remotely operated underwater vehicle used to find it had also become stuck in ropes connected to the ferry.

“We have proven 100 percent” that the ferry is there, Ilyas said, adding that the submersible was later retrieved but needed to be repaired as its cable had broken.

A relative of missing passengers of a ferry that sank holds a flower before throwing it into Lake Toba in Simalungun, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 2, 2018. Antara Foto/Sigid Kurniawan/via REUTERS

A relative of missing passengers of a ferry that sank holds a flower before throwing it into Lake Toba in Simalungun, North Sumatra, Indonesia July 2, 2018. Antara Foto/Sigid Kurniawan/via REUTERS

Rescuers earlier said they were considering borrowing a heavier vehicle from Singapore to retrieve the victims and the vessel, but that plan was canceled as it would take more than three weeks and was “high cost”, Latif said.

Craig Chesner, a geologist from Eastern Illinois University who conducted a survey of Toba in 2012, said the ferry had sunk “in the deepest part of the entire lake”.

According to media reports, a monument will be erected by the government in memory of victims.

(For a graphic on ferry accidents, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2tJOHlq)

(Reporting by Tabita Diela; Additional reporting by Simon Scarr in SINGAPORE; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Man smashes Arkansas Capitol’s new Ten Commandments monument

A statue of the Ten Commandments is seen after it was installed on the grounds of the state Capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Barnes

By Steve Barnes

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) – A newly installed Ten Commandments monument on Arkansas state Capitol grounds was destroyed on Wednesday by a man police said drove his vehicle into the granite slab and posted the incident on Facebook.

“It was shattered into a lot of pieces,” Chris Powell, a spokesman for the Secretary of State and Capitol Police, said in an interview.

The suspect, identified as Michael Reed, 32, was arrested on three charges, including defacing an object of public interest. Police did not release Reed’s motive for toppling the monument installed in Little Rock on Tuesday.

Republican state Senator Jason Rapert, the main backer of the monument, said a replacement has been ordered.

“Frankly this guy was in a state of mind that he could very well have hurt somebody,” he said at a news conference.

A Facebook Live video posted to the account of a person named Michael Reed appears to show the slab’s destruction.

In the vehicle, a person can be heard saying: “Oh my goodness. Freedom,” and driving more than 20 mph (32 kph) until a smashing noise is heard.

“He actually was videoing it and broadcasting it live on Facebook as it happened,” police spokesman Powell said, adding an officer patrolling nearby arrested Reed.

No lawyer was listed for the suspect in online jail records.

In 2014, a person with the same name and age as the suspect used a vehicle to smash a Ten Commandments monument on Oklahoma Capitol grounds, law enforcement in Oklahoma said.

Reed then fled the scene and went into a federal building. He made threats against then President Barack Obama, they said. News reports in Oklahoma said he was never formally charged.

Arkansas has not officially confirmed whether the same Reed was involved in Wednesday’s incident, Powell said.

The 6-foot (1.8-meter) monument in Little Rock was funded with $26,000 in private donations. Legislation permitting it on the Capitol grounds was enacted in 2015, and whether that was appropriate has been debated ever since.

Courts have ordered the removal of similar religious monuments erected in Alabama and Oklahoma, which had rebuilt its monument after it was destroyed.

A civil liberties group has pledged a court challenge in Arkansas, saying the monument showed an unconstitutional government preference for a certain religion.

Since Arkansas’ Ten Commandments monument act was proposed, satanists and other groups have sought state permission to place markers on Capitol grounds, but their requests were rejected.

(Reporting by Steve Barnes in Little Rock and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Taylor Harris and Grant McCool)

Satanist Destroys Ten Commandments Monument

An admitted Satanist drove his vehicle into the Ten Commandments monument outside the Oklahoma state house, breaking it into pieces.

Michael Reed, Jr., says that Satan told him to destroy the monument and then urinate on it.

Reed destroyed the monument on Thursday and then walked into the Oklahoma City Federal Building on Friday stating that he was going to kill President Obama.  He was taken into custody by the Secret Service for the threats.

Reed reportedly was placed into a mental hospital and is being indefinitely detained.

The ACLU, which had been actively trying to remove the monument, issued a condemnation of the action while still attacking Christians and those who support the monument.

“The ACLU of Oklahoma and our clients are outraged at this apparent act of vandalism,” it stated. “Our Oklahoma and federal Constitutions seek to create a society in which people of all faiths and those of no faith at all can coexist as equals without fear of repressions from the government or their neighbors. Whether it is politicians using religion as a political tool or vandals desecrating religious symbols, neither are living up to the full promise of our founding documents.”

Several elected leaders, including Governor Mary Fallin, have said they will pay money from their own pockets to rebuild the monument.

Anti-Christianists Demand Removal Of Statue With Scripture Reference

Two virulent anti-Christian groups’ latest action to try and remove Christians from society is to tell a high school in Georgia they must remove a sculpture because it contains a Bible reference.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation and the American Humanist Association are threatening the Madison County School District in Danielsville, Georgia.  The school has a monument outside the field house of the high school that contains Romans 8:31 and Philippians 4:13.

The monument was paid for by private funds.

“The district violates the Constitution when it allows its schools to display religious symbols messages. Schools may not advance, prefer or promote religion,” the letter from anti-Christian FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel asserted. “The Bible verses on this monument violate this basic constitutional prohibition by creating the appearance that the school, and by extension the district, prefer religion to non-religion and Christianity to all other religions.”

The school’s superintendent says they are looking into options including removing the Bible verses or removing the monument.

Ten Commandments Display Ruled Constitutional

A Federal appeals court has ruled that a Ten Commandments display in North Dakota is not a violation of the Constitution.

A Ten Commandments monument was donated to the city of Fargo 50 years ago by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.  The monument was placed in the city’s Civic Plaza, which is a public space.  An anti-Christian group has been fighting against the monument since 2002 in an attempt to eliminate Christianity from being seen in public places.

Fargo’s Board of City Commissioners had initially attempted to appease the anti-Christianists by moving the monument to private land but residents objected and petitioned the city to pass an ordinance that any monument on public land that had been in place for 40 or more years could not be moved.

When the anti-Christian group sued, a lower court said that the monument presented no Constitutional violation because it showed the impact of religion on the nation’s history.  The appeals court upheld that ruling on a 2-1 decision.

“Like the Ten Commandments monument at issue in Van Orden, the Plattsmouth monument makes passive—and permissible—use of the text of the Ten Commandments to acknowledge the role of religion in our nation’s heritage,” the court ruled referring to other cases where the Ten Commandments have been allowed in public spaces.