Help a Human Rights Activist Who Matters

Winter is upon us and one reporter doing important work can use a little assistance.

(SALEM) - I know people are all dealing with their own struggles, but I also know that some who are reading this would not mind supporting the important Human Rights mission of William Gomes. He writes about state abuse toward innocent people in every corner of the globe and his articles and letters to public officials have alerted officials to rogue behavior in their own government at least twice that we know of.

He also brings attention to the governments that are suspected of conducting such behavior. As we have learned, even some of the most problematic states have incredible people in their ranks who help when they can. Sometimes those 'good' officials are ignorant of what another representative or agency of their government is doing; that is until Mr. Gomes is contacted, writes about it, and the story lands on the desk of a higher up, then the cat is out of the bag.

My point is that we are developing strategies to circumnavigate the systems that keep information contained and close at hand; tight lips allow suffering to continue. All it takes is an Internet connection and an email to William Gomes, and the secrets about torture, rape, enforced disappearances and unlawful detainment stop being secrets. Americans really need to dial in and care about this.

Those who care need to understand that Mr. Gomes, who we named as our Human Rights Ambassador, is originally from Bangladesh and his caring spirit should not deceive, as he has the courage of a thousand men. Most people take care of themselves and their families and friends. A handful do it as government employees and a lot of people from religious organizations help people, but Mr. Gomes is the only person who constantly reports these violations from a U.S. based news organization and governments violating international Human Rights laws don't find a lot of comfort with that aspect. They know we are a media magnet visited by hundreds of reporters every day, and they know you can't recall information once it goes out.

The answer for these governments is to change; restructure and terminate bad apples. This is the process William helps see through. The answer for the rest of us is to drop William a few bucks via PayPal so that his mission in this world can continue. Seriously, winter is here and anything would help. For those who don't know, Salem-News.com is an 8-year old news Web group out of Oregon with 100+ reporters and representatives in 23 countries.

Salem-News.com Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes is a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist and author was born in Dhaka. As an investigative journalist he wrote widely for leading European and Asian media outlets.

He is also active in advocating for free and independent media and journalists’ rights, and is part of the free media movement, Global Independent Media Center – an activist media network for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate telling of the truth. He worked for Italian news agency Asianews.it from year 2009 to 2011, on that time he was accredited as a free lance journalist by the press information department of Bangladesh. During this time he has reported a notable numbers of reports for the news agency which were translated into Chinese and Italian and quoted by notable number of new outlets all over the world.

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. 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 tense 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)