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Please note that submissions must be human rights-related and of interest to human rights grantmakers. Your submission will be reviewed within a day or two and IHRFG may use its discretion in approving suggested items.
Obama seeks to join global Rights of Child pact
June 22, 2009 - John Heilprin, The Guardian
The Obama administration is reviving efforts to have the United States sign onto a global children's rights treaty ratified by every U.N. member except the U.S. and Somalia, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said Monday.
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Climate-refugee problem attracts global attention
May 29, 2009 - Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times
Growing concerns over the fate of as many as 200 million climate refugees in the coming decades are raising the issue's profile among international policymakers and diplomats, with the United Nations General Assembly prepared to vote on a resolution linking climate change to global security. Stark differences of opinion among countries remain on what, if any, action should be taken.
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Climate change drying up big rivers, study finds
April 21, 2009 - Reuters, Reuters
Rivers in some of the world's most populated regions are losing water, many because of climate change, researchers reported in April. Affected rivers include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado in the southwestern United States.
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Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool
February 1, 2009 - Greg Miller, Washington Post
The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba. But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool: renditions...
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In a First, Gay Rights Are Pressed at the UN
December 18, 2008 - NEIL MACFARQUHAR, New York Times
An unprecedented declaration seeking to decriminalize homosexuality won the support of 66 countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, but opponents criticized it as an attempt to legitimize "deplorable acts."
The United States refused to support the nonbinding measure, as did Russia, China, the Roman Catholic Church and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Holy See’s observer mission issued a statement saying that the declaration "challenges existing human rights norms."
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UN Democracy Fund issues call for applications
October 31, 2008 - UNDEF, UNDEF
The Third Round of Funding for the United Nations Democracy Fund - UNDEF - will be conducted from 10 November to 31 December 2008.
Applications for UNDEF funding can be made online through a link from the UNDEF website that will be open from 10 November 2008.
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South African Court issues landmark ruling against pre-paid water meters in Johannesburg township, requires provision of 50 litres of water free per person per day
May 1, 2008 - Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE)
The High Court of South Africa has ruled that the City of Johannesburg’s forced prepayment water meters scheme in Phiri, a township in Soweto, is unconstitutional. This judgement, in which the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) provided a third party submission (amicus curiae), also reaffirmed the principle of progressive realisation and increases the minimal amount of safe drinking water that the City is obligated to provide.
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US prison rate soars even higher
March 4, 2008 - BBC News
The US prison population has risen further, with one in 138 people now in jail, new official figures reveal. There are more than 2.1 million US citizens in jail - more than in any other country, the Bureau of Justice Statistics says. The government says putting and keeping criminals in jail is working. Recent figures have shown violent crime and murder falling. But critics say less severe ways of approaching crime are being ignored.
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Russian Federation: Human rights activist and journalists beaten in Ingushetia
November 24, 2007 - Amnesty International
Amnesty International is shocked and appalled by the latest attack against a human rights defender and members of the media in the southern Russian Republic of Ingushetia. According to the Human Rights Centre Memorial, Oleg Orlov, head of the Human Rights Centre Memorial, and three journalists from the Russian TV station REN TV, were taken from a hotel in Nazran, Ingushetia, during the night of 23 to 24 November by armed masked men and beaten.
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Housing is a Human Right
November 30, 2007 - Joe Lamport, Gotham Gazette
The New York City’s affordable housing crisis has brought housing advocates together to seek political solutions to what is commonly seen as an economic problem. But advocates in some other cities are finding more ammunition for their efforts: They are citing international treaties that oblige governments to respect a human right to adequate housing.
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Brazil's Aids policy 'remarkable'
November 15, 2007 - By Gary Duffy, BBC News, Sao Paulo
Bargaining with pharmaceutical firms to bring down the price of Aids drugs and producing cheap generic versions has saved Brazil $1bn, a study has shown.
Infection rates in the Latin American country have been kept at a similar level to the US, the report finds.
And more than 180,000 Brazilians have access to Aids treatment.
Brazil's achievement is described as "remarkable", in the study published by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States.
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Dozen US rights groups ask Bush to cut off military aid to Pakistan
November 14, 2007 - AFR
A dozen US human rights groups on Tuesday urged President George W. Bush to cut off military aid to Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf refuses to end emergency rule and release politicians, jurists and rights activists.
In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the groups said Musharraf's imposition of emergency flew in the face of the Bush administration's policy of supporting freedom and democracy as an antidote to extremism.
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On Torture and American Values
October 7, 2007 - New York Times
Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.
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DR Congo Government forces commit worst of widespread abuses – UN report
September 17, 2007 - UN News Centre
Government soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remain responsible for the country’s worst human rights abuses, carrying out arbitrary executions and raping, robbing or extorting civilians, according to the latest report by the United Nations peacekeeping mission
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Disability Treaty Waits for Legal Teeth
September 21, 2007 - Alexandra Stahl, IPS
Disabled rights groups and U.N. officials hope that the first core human rights treaty of the 21st century, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, could finally assume legal force when world leaders gather here for the 62nd session of the General Assembly next week.
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United Nations adopts Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples
September 13, 2007 - UN News Centre
The General Assembly today adopted a landmark declaration outlining the rights of the world’s estimated 370 million indigenous people and outlawing discrimination against them – a move that followed more than two decades of debate.
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Human Rights Body Calls on Peru to Protect Citizens from Contamination by American-owned Smelter
September 5, 2007 - AIDA, Earthjustice
Oakland, CA; Lima, Peru – The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has asked the government of Peru to take immediate steps to protect the health of inhabitants of La Oroya, Peru, who suffer severe health impacts due to contamination from a smelter owned by American billionaire Ira Rennert. Rennert’s company, Doe Run Peru, owns and operates the smelter. La Oroya residents suffer health problems related to emissions of lead, arsenic, cadmium, sulfur dioxide and other pollution from the smelter.
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Conscience of a Conservative
September 5, 2007 - Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times
In the fall of 2003, Jack L. Goldsmith was widely considered one of the brightest stars in the conservative legal firmament. A 40-year-old law professor at the University of Chicago, Goldsmith had established himself, with his friend and fellow law professor John Yoo, as a leading proponent of the view that international standards of human rights should not apply in cases before U.S. courts. In recognition of their prominence, Goldsmith and Yoo had been anointed the “New Sovereigntists” by the journal Foreign Affairs.
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Liberian Ex-Leader’s War Crimes Trial Is Stalled
August 27, 2007 - Marlise Simons, New York Times
When Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was arrested 17 months ago on war crimes charges and ordered to face international judges, it was heralded as a milestone for justice in Africa. But having barely begun, the case has already lost its momentum. Last Monday, hearings were postponed for the fourth time this year, and the court is now set to reconvene in January.
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Psychological Torture and the Bush Administration
August 22, 2007 - James Ross, Huffington Post
People tend to think of torture as physical. Torture conjures up images of the thumbscrews in the Tower of London and the rack during the Spanish Inquisition. But torture is as likely to be mental as well as physical. The iconic photo of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal -- the hooded man on a box with outstretched arms -- was being subjected to psychological torture. The wires attached to his arms went nowhere -- he merely believed he would be subjected to electric shock.
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Ford Foundation Selects Its New Leader From Outside the Philanthropic World
August 14, 2007 - Stephanie Strom, New York Times
The Ford Foundation has selected a dark-horse candidate with little experience in institutional philanthropy as its new president.The Ford Foundation has selected a dark-horse candidate with little experience in institutional philanthropy as its new president.
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House Of Representatives Approves Measure Calling For Apology From Japan To Surviving 'Comfort Women'
August 7, 2007 - V-Day
On Monday, July 30, 2007, the US House of Representatives passed a formal resolution calling on the government of Japan to apologize for the abduction and serial rapes of tens of thousands of girls and young women across Asia and the Pacific, forced into ongoing sexual slavery in 'comfort stations' serving Japanese soldiers between 1932 and 1945.
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UN convention on disability rights reaches milestone in signatories
July 11, 2007 - UN News Centre
United Nations officials say the global treaty to protect the rights of the world’s estimated 650 million people with disabilities could take effect by early next year after Qatar this week became the 100th country to sign the landmark pact.
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CIA to reveal decades of misdeeds
June 22, 2007 - BBC News
The US Central Intelligence Agency is to declassify hundreds of documents detailing some of the agency's worst illegal abuses from the 1950s to 1970s.
The papers, to be released next week, will detail assassination plots, domestic spying and wiretapping, kidnapping and human experiments.
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Global rush to energy crops threatens to bring food shortages and increase poverty, says UN
May 9, 2007 - John Vidal, The Guardian
The global rush to switch from oil to energy derived from plants will drive deforestation, push small farmers off the land and lead to serious food shortages and increased poverty unless carefully managed, says the most comprehensive survey yet completed of energy crops.
The United Nations report, compiled by all 30 of the world organisation's agencies, points to crops like palm oil, maize, sugar cane, soya and jatropha. Rich countries want to see these extensively grown for fuel as a way to reduce their own climate changing emissions. Their production could help stabilise the price of oil, open up new markets and lead to higher commodity prices for the poor.
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New Law Targets Traffickers, Not Victims
April 30, 2007 - Baradan Kuppusamy, IPS-Inter Press Service
Malaysia has tabled a tough new anti-human trafficking bill that punishes offenders with up to 20 years in prison, but rights activists, who had fought for such a law for a decade, say the bill's success depends heavily on effective enforcement.
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Ex-AIDS chief in escort flap called hypocritical
April 29, 2007 - John Donnelly, Boston Globe
Randall L. Tobias , the Bush administration official responsible for foreign assistance who resigned late Friday because of his use of an escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, was ridiculed as a hypocrite yesterday because he supported US policies that forced overseas organizations not to help prostitutes.
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Blogs in Belarus Boost Human Rights
April 30, 2007 - Evgeny Morozov, Business Week
A plea to the blogosphere helped free a young Belarusian activist, demonstrating the Internet's power to promote rights and make collective action more effective.
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New Law Targets Traffickers, Not Victims
April 30, 2007 - Baradan Kuppusamy, Inter Press Service News Agency
Malaysia has tabled a tough new anti-human trafficking bill that punishes offenders with up to 20 years in prison, but rights activists, who had fought for such a law for a decade, say the bill's success depends heavily on effective enforcement.
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Holocaust museum teams with Google on Darfur project
April 10, 2007 - Caroline McCarthy, CNET News
The "Crisis in Darfur" project was launched Tuesday at a press conference in Washington, D.C., where the Holocaust Memorial Museum is located. Interested Web users can now download the Google Earth layer, which contains interactive content assembled by the museum, including photographs, data, and eyewitness testimonies. With the Crisis in Darfur layer, users can zoom in on detailed satellite photographs of the destruction in Sudan: more than 1,600 villages that have been damaged or destroyed, and more than 100,000 structures including mosques, schools, and homes.
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Indigenous Peoples' Rights Ignored Again
April 10, 2007 - Julio Godoy, IPS
The rights of indigenous people are given respect in speech after speech, but few countries have signed up to an international convention to protect those rights. The Convention concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, also known as Convention 169, was proposed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in June 1989. But the convention has been ratified by only 18 countries, mostly developing nations from Latin America.
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Record number of countries sign UN treaty on disabilities on opening day
March 30, 2007 - UN News Centre
Eighty-one Member States and the European Community signed a landmark new treaty today at the United Nations that aims to improve the lives of the world’s estimated 650 million people with disabilities, a record for the first day of signature of any convention.
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The Gender Equity Index 2007: inequity persists
March 30, 2007 - Social Watch
The results of the 2007 Social Watch Gender Equity Index (GEI) clearly demonstrate that a country’s level of wealth does not automatically determine its degree of equity. Rwanda, one of the world’s least developed countries, ranks third on the list of GEI scores, after Sweden and Finland, thanks to intensive affirmative action efforts.
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Nicaraguan Activists Press Abortion Legal Case
March 16, 2007 - Toyin Adeyemi and Allison Stevens, Women's eNews
A case that tests an abortion ban in Nicaragua is being reviewed by the nation's Supreme Court this spring. Activists say the law imperils the lives of women and it looms large as a symbol of the economic and health inequalities they routinely face.
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Global Warming Is Human Rights Issue, Nobel Nominee Says
March 5, 2007 - Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters
It sounds like a sick joke about global warming, with a series of horrible punch lines:
How hot is it? So hot that Inuit people around the Arctic Circle are using air conditioners for the first time. And running out of the hard-packed snow they need to build igloos. And falling through melting ice when they hunt.
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As Human Rights Council opens session, Ban Ki-moon says ‘world is watching’
March 15, 2007 - UN News Centre
The Human Rights Council opened its fourth session in Geneva today, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressing that the “world is watching” to see if the new body, which was set up last year to replace the much-criticized Human Rights Commission, will live up to expectations.
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Disability treaty set to correct injustices opens for signature
March 13, 2007 - United Nations
A new human rights treaty that would protect the rights of the world’s 650 million persons with disabilities will be opened for signature at the United Nations on 30 March.
Over 40 countries have already indicated they will sign the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities when it opens for signature and ratification by States and regional integration organizations at a solemn ceremony in the UN General Assembly hall. Many more are expected to announce their intention in the coming weeks leading up to the signing event.
U.S. Issues Annual Human Rights Report
March 6, 2007 - Brian Knowlton, NY Times
The State Department declared today that the genocide in Darfur is the world’s gravest human rights abuse. It also issued tough critiques of Iran and North Korea, despite recent diplomatic openings to both nations.
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Federal Appeals Court Rules in Favor of U.S. Policy Requiring Groups That Receive HIV/AIDS Funding To Condemn Commercial Sex Work
February 28, 2007 - Kaiser Network
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday ruled that a U.S. policy requiring recipients of federal HIV/AIDS service grants to pledge to oppose commercial sex work does not violate the groups' First Amendment right to free speech.
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New Light Shed on CIA's 'Black Site' Prisons
February 28, 2007 - Dafna Linzer and Julie Tate, Washington Post
On his last day in CIA custody, Marwan Jabour, an accused al-Qaeda paymaster, was stripped naked, seated in a chair and videotaped by agency officers. Afterward, he was shackled and blindfolded, headphones were put over his ears, and he was given an injection that made him groggy. Jabour, 30, was laid down in the back of a van, driven to an airstrip and put on a plane with at least one other prisoner.
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Canada rejects anti-terror laws
February 27, 2007 - BBC News
The Canadian parliament has voted against renewing two controversial anti-terror measures that had been adopted after the 11 September attacks.
The measures allowed suspects to be detained without charge for three days and could compel witnesses to testify.
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Court names Darfur war suspects
February 27, 2007 - BBC News
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have named a minister and a militia leader who they suspect of war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.
Sudanese Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, were named.
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A War Under Law
February 22, 2007 - Jeffrey H. Smith, Washington Post
In November, Americans voiced their frustration with the war in Iraq and gave control of Congress to the Democrats. The voters rejected the president's swaggering, go-it-alone approach and the administration's contemptuous attitude toward the Geneva Conventions, which led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, actions that so damaged our credibility that other nations are much less willing to cooperate in the war on terrorism. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and her able legal adviser, John Bellinger, have pushed for reforms that have begun to reverse this trend -- but much more must be done.
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Dodd introduces bill to restore habeas rights, redefine 'enemy combatant'
February 14, 2007 - Brett Murphy, Jurist
US Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) on Tuesday introduced in the Senate the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 [S 576 summary], legislation that would restore habeas corpus rights to all US-held detainees, ban the use of evidence gained by torture or coercion, and redefine "enemy combatant" in a more narrow light. If the bill is passed, it would change the detention status of many persons currently held by the US on suspicion of terrorist activities.
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For 'continuity with change,' Ban Ki-moon names new top UN officials, retains others
February 9, 2007 - UN News Centre
Acting on his pledge to achieve continuity with change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who took office on 1 January, today named four new senior officials to his cabinet while retaining a dozen others.
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"War on Terrorism" Poses Growing Threat to Free Expression
January 19, 2007 - IFEX Communiqué
More than five years since the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, global responses to terrorism have contributed to an array of threats to freedom of expression and the danger is "real, catastrophic, accelerating," Human Rights Watch has warned in its 2007 World Report.
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EU Urged to Lead on Human Rights as U.S. Loses Moral Authority
January 12, 2007 - Haider Rizvi, One World US
The Bush administration's failure to address international human rights concerns has prompted an unusual call from one of the world's leading human rights organizations.
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Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation
January 7, 2007 - Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders and Robyn Dixon, LA Times
The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.
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France to create 'legal right' to housing
January 5, 2007 - Emma Charlton, AFP
The French government announced plans to create a "legal right" to housing in response to a snowballing campaign that has seen a tent city for the homeless spring up in the heart of Paris.
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U.N. Supports Rights of Disabled People
December 13, 2006 - Associated Press, New York Times
The General Assembly on Wednesday approved the first U.N. convention to protect the rights of the world's 650 million disabled people, prohibiting their exclusion from education, jobs and politics.
The convention requires countries to protect disabled people from exploitation and abuse and to guarantee their rights -- such as ensuring the blind can vote and having wheelchair-accessible buildings.
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NGOs around the world celebrate historic UN statement on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
December 13, 2006 - International Lesbian and Gay Association
NGOs from around the world welcomed a landmark statement on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity, delivered last Friday December 1, 2006 at the United Nations Human Rights Council by Norway on behalf of 54 States.
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As Secretary-General prepares to step down, five lessons learnt during difficult but exhilarating decade
December 11, 2006 - United Nations
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US: Justice Dept. Brings First Charges for Torture Abroad
December 6, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
The US Department of Justice today took a major step against impunity for atrocities in bringing its first-ever criminal charges for torture committed outside the United States, Human Rights Watch said today.
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United Nations undermining its own Human Rights Council in failing to affirm the human rights of Indigenous Peoples
November 30, 2006 - Amnesty International
Amnesty International deplores the failure of the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly to adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at its 2006 session.
The Indigenous Caucus working on the Declaration has concluded that the UN is effectively affirming that “Indigenous Peoples are not equal to all other Peoples.”
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Burma: Army Forces Thousands to Flee
November 30, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
Thousands of Burmese civilians forced to flee from army attacks in Karen state are trekking through free-fire zones in search of safety and food aid, Human Rights Watch said today. More than 200 civilians have reached camps near the Thai border, but another 3,000 are still on the move, according to credible recent reports received by Human Rights Watch.
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CIA Abuses: EU Report Condemns European Complicity
November 29, 2006 - Reuters AlertNet
The draft report of the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on illegal CIA activity in Europe is a powerful indictment of European governments' complicity in CIA abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. "The report shows how European governments acted as the willing facilitators of CIA abuses such as secret detention and rendition to torture," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch.
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Annan calls on Human Rights Council to strive for unity, avoid familiar fault lines
November 29, 2006 - UN News Centre
The members of the United Nations Human Rights Council must be careful to avoid becoming divided between developed and developing countries, Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned today as he urged them to embrace the universality of rights.
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A Discredit to the United Nations
November 21, 2006 - NY Times
The old, unreformed United Nations Human Rights Commission was selective and one-sided, but occasionally managed to do some good work. That may be more than can be said for its successor body, the Human Rights Council, born earlier this year of a weak-kneed compromise from which the United States stood honorably apart. If this is the best the U.N. can do at reforming itself, it isn’t worth the effort.
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Pakistan votes to amend rape laws
November 15, 2006 - BBC News
Until now rape cases were dealt with in Sharia courts. Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery. Now civil courts will be able to try rape cases, assuming the upper house and the president ratify the move.
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A Shift in the Debate On International Court
November 6, 2006 - Nora Boustany, Washington Post
When then-Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton nullified the U.S. signature on the International Criminal Court treaty one month into President Bush's first term, he declared it the happiest moment in his years of service. Bolton referred to the court as a "product of fuzzy-minded romanticism . . . not just naive, but dangerous."
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Amateur Videos Are Putting Official Abuse in New Light
November 15, 2006 - Mary Jordan, Washington Post
"Do your squat! Do your squat!" the policewoman barked. "Arms up!"
The 22-year-old babysitter, Hemy Hamisa Abu Hassan Saari, had already been forced to strip naked. Now she was being ordered to squat up and down, over and over, keeping her elbows away from her body and holding her earlobes.
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China Changes Death Penalty Law
October 31, 2006
China's legislature on Tuesday barred all but the nation's highest court from approving death sentences, a move that state media called the country's biggest change to capital punishment in more than 20 years.
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Nicaragua Bans Abortion
October 30, 2006 - New York Times
The rights and safety of Nicaragua’s women took a giant step backward last week when the country’s legislature passed a law criminalizing all abortions, with no exceptions. The previous law permitted an abortion if the mother’s life was in danger.
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Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognizes access to information rights
October 30, 2006
For the first time ever, an international tribunal has recognised access to government-held information as a basic human right. On 11 October 2006, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights confirmed the existence of such a right in a case pitting the Chilean government against three environmental activists who sought information on a controversial logging project, report the Open Society Justice Initiative and Access Info Europe.
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New Jersey Court Expands Gay Rights
October 26, 2006 - Robert Schwaneberg, Newark Star Ledger
In a ruling that advanced the cause of same-sex couples and at the same time disappointed many of them, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled yesterday they are constitutionally entitled to all rights and benefits heterosexual couples get through civil marriage.
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Khartoum Expels U.N. Envoy Who Has Been Outspoken on Darfur Atrocities
October 23, 2006 - Warren Hoge, New York Times
Sudan’s government on Sunday ordered the chief United Nations envoy to leave, saying he was an enemy of the country and its armed forces. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that he was reviewing the letter from the Khartoum government and had asked the envoy, Jan Pronk, to return to New York for “consultations.”
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Russia Halts Activities of Many Groups From Abroad
October 20, 2006 - Peter Finn, Washington Post
Russia on Thursday suspended the activities of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Republican Institute and more than 90 other foreign nongovernmental organizations, saying they failed to meet the registration requirements of a controversial new law designed to bring activists here under much closer government scrutiny.
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CPJ condemns slaying of Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya
October 7, 2006 - CPJ
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns today’s murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist renowned for her critical coverage of the Chechen conflict. Politkovskaya was found shot to death in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow, The Associated Press reported.
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U.N. Faces Test on Native Rights
October 13, 2006 - Haider Rizvi, IPS
Even though various U.N. agencies have endorsed an international document that calls for full recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples, the United States and a handful of other nations continue to stand in the way of its approval by the 192-member General Assembly.
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Rights: Gender Violence a Universal Norm, says UN
October 11, 2006 - Thalif Deen, IPS
A 113-page landmark UN study on gender violence says women continue to be victims of sexual harassment, human trafficking and blatant discrimination worldwide.
"Violence against women persists in every country in the world as a pervasive violation of human rights and a major impediment to achieving gender equality," says the first-ever in-depth report on gender violence released Monday by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
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Civil Society Groups Celebrate Right to Know Day
October 5, 2006 - IFEX Communiqué
IFEX members joined dozens of free expression activists around the world last week to celebrate Right to Know Day and promote the right to access information. Since 2002, Right to Know Day has been held each year on 28 September to raise awareness of every individual's right to know how elected officials are exercising power and how public funds are being spent.
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Thailand: Coup Threatens Human Rights
September 19, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
Military forces responsible for a coup d’etat in Thailand today should immediately restore fundamental human rights and protect those exercising their rights to free expression, association and assembly, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Annan warns Darfur is heading for disaster unless UN peacekeepers move in
September 14, 2006 - UN News Centre
Darfur is headed for a disaster unless the Sudanese Government changes its mind and allows a force of United Nations peacekeepers to take over from the existing African Union (AU) operation in the strife-torn region, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.
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U.N. Puts Spotlight on Global Immigration
September 14, 2006 - NPR
The U.N. opens its first-ever session on world migration trends. The number of people migrating all over the globe is growing. The U.N. will hear from various countries about border control and immigration tensions.
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Darfur: Indiscriminate Bombing Warrants U.N. Sanctions
September 6, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
Sources on the ground indicate that the government of Sudan is indiscriminately bombing civilian-occupied villages in rebel-held North Darfur, Human Rights Watch said today. The bombing campaign comes as Khartoum is threatening to eject African Union peacekeepers and stymieing efforts to deploy a U.N. force to the region, and should trigger sanctions against senior Sudanese government officials.
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The Special Rapporteurs - a three-part series
September 6, 2006
Special rapporteurs are appointed by the United Nations to monitor and report on how people's human rights are protected or violated. The job combines diplomatic and investigative skills, the work is hard, and at times it is hazardous.
In this three-part series, Gemma Mortensen meets the special rapporteurs for racism, defence of human rights and violence against women.
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Journalists from Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan to Receive Press Freedom Awards
August 30, 2006 - IFEX Communiqué
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) will be honouring journalists from Colombia, Egypt and Pakistan for bravery at its 2006 International Press Freedom Awards banquet in Toronto in November. Hollman Morris, Abeer Al-Askary and Hayat Ullah Khan have been named winners of this year's awards, which recognise journalists who overcome great odds to cover the news.
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UN denounces Israel cluster bombs
August 30, 2006 - BBC News
The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.
UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.
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Amnesty Warns of Potential Darfur Catastrophe
August 28, 2006 - Noel King
Leading human rights group Amnesty International said Monday that it fears a humanitarian catastrophe is brewing in Darfur. Sudan is reported to have begun sending troops and arms into Darfur, claiming that it wants to stop violence in the war-torn region.
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UN agrees on disability treaty text
August 26, 2006
An international treaty that will give greater rights and freedoms to disabled people around the world has been agreed at the United Nations.This is the first human rights treaty of the 21st Century, and the UN hopes it will mark a significant improvement in the treatment of disabled people.
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New U.N. Human Rights Council Approves Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
August 25, 2006 - Theodore Macdonald, World Indigenous News
In June, two historic transitions in international human rights took place at the United Nations’ Geneva headquarters. The first was the inaugural session of the new U.N. Human Rights Council.In June, two historic transitions in international human rights took place at the United Nations’ Geneva headquarters. The first was the inaugural session of the new U.N. Human Rights Council.
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Delhi police raid rooms of human rights activists from South Asia
August 4, 2006 - Jawed Naqvi, Dawn
Indian sleuths raided hotel rooms of leading human rights activists from South Asia on Tuesday night, including Asma Jehangir the UN Special Rapporteur and Chairperson of the Human Rights Comission of Pakistan, and I.A. Rehman also of the Human Rights Comission of Pakistan. The activists were on a visit to New Delhi to attend a meeting of the South Asians for Human Rights.
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Apple admits excessive iPod hours
August 18, 2006 - BBC News
Apple Computer has said a report of labour conditions at its iPod plant in China found workers did more than 60 hours a week a third of the time.
Staff making the world's most popular MP3 player also worked more than six consecutive days 25% of the time.
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Indonesia: Mobs, Thugs Pose Biggest Threats to Press Freedom
August 16, 2006 - Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, IFEX
Mob violence and thuggery were the leading causes of violence against the Indonesian press in 2005, a report by the Alliance for Independent Journalists (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen, AJI) has found.
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COUNTRIES STILL GIVING LOWER PRIORITY TO ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS, HIGH COMMISSIONER SAYS
July 26, 2006 - Louise Arbour, High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR
The legal protection countries give economic, social and cultural rights is considerably weaker than in the case of other rights and should be strengthened, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says in a report presented to the Economic and Social Council at its current session.
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Oxfam Struggles to Provide Aid to Lebanon
August 8, 2006 - The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Officials from Oxfam International, a global aid group, said they are struggling to get relief to those most in need in southern Lebanon while fighting between the Israeli army and Hezbollah militias continues to destroy crucial roads and bridges, BBC News reports.
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ISRAEL-OPT: Aid agencies ask the world to remember Gaza
August 2, 2006 - IRIN
Aid agencies and the United Nations are calling upon the international community not to forget the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, which they say is at least as serious as the situation in southern Lebanon.
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House Passes Charitable-Giving Legislation
July 31, 2006 - Elizabeth Schwinn, The Chronicle of Philanthropy
The House of Representatives on Friday passed several measures designed to stimulate charitable giving and curb abuses of tax laws by donors and nonprofit organizations. The provisions were included in legislation that would tighten rules that protect America's private pension system.
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UN Human Rights Experts urge parties to the current conflict in the Middle East to fully respect and protect the rights of the civilian populations
July 21, 2006 - OHCHR
The Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin; the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, Miloon Kothari; the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler; the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Ambeyi Ligabo; the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Paul Hunt, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Vernor Muñoz issued the following statement today (click on link below).
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Israel/Lebanon: Israel Responsible for Qana Attack
July 30, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
Responsibility for the Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 54 civilians sheltering in a home in the Lebanese village of Qana rests squarely with the Israeli military, Human Rights Watch said today. It is the latest product of an indiscriminate bombing campaign that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have waged in Lebanon over the past 18 days, leaving an estimated 750 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians.
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China: Amnesty accuses Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google of hypocrisy in China and urges users to take action against them
July 20, 2006 - Amnesty International
Amnesty International today (20 July) urged users of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google to use their power as consumers to help end corporate complicity in suppression of the internet in China. The call to action - part of a new campaign for free speech online called irrepressible.info - came as Amnesty launched a new report accusing the firms of hypocrisy by talking about freedom of expression and access to information while denying it in order to access the lucrative Chinese market.
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US says war on terror not governed by UN rights treaty
July 17, 2006 - Joe Shaulis, Jurist
Making the first US appearance before the UN Human Rights Committee in more than a decade, American officials on Monday defended their position that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not govern many aspects of the war on terror. In a media roundtable in conjunction with a committee hearing in Geneva, Mark Lagon, deputy assistant secretary of state for international organisation affairs, said that US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and practices such as extraordinary rendition "lie beyond the scope of the treaty" because they either involve US conduct outside American territory or are governed by the law of war rather than human rights law.
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Malaysia: 18 Books on Islam and Religion Banned
July 20, 2006 - IFEX
Since mid-June, Malaysian authorities have banned 18 books on Islam and religion on the grounds that they could "disrupt peace and harmony," report the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) and ARTICLE 19. The Ministry of Internal Security has now banned more than 45 books since 2003.
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AIDS: Success in Fight Threatened by Rights Abuses Conference Must Promote Rights-Based Response to HIV Pandemic
July 17, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
Ongoing rights abuses are undermining efforts to fight the HIV pandemic and threatening the few, hard-won successes, Human Rights Watch said today, a month before the XVI International AIDS Conference opens in Toronto.
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Afghanistan: Media Guidelines Threaten Press Freedom
July 4, 2006 - IFEX Communiqué
In what has been called the biggest threat to the independence of the media and free expression since the ousting of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan's intelligence agency has issued a list of guidelines urging journalists to curtail their reporting on the country's deteriorating security situation.
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U.N.: Mixed Start for New Human Rights Council
June 30, 2006 - Reuters AlertNet
The first session of the new U.N. Human Rights Council was largely successful in laying a foundation for its future work, but there are signs that it may repeat some of its predecessor's mistakes, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Supreme Court Blocks Trials at Guantanamo
June 29, 2006 - John O'Neil, New York Times
The Supreme Court today delivered a sweeping rebuke to the Bush administration, ruling that the military tribunals it created to try terror suspects violate both American military law and the Geneva Convention.
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Buffett donates $37bn to charity
June 26, 2006 - BBC News
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is to donate about $37bn (£20bn) - most of his vast personal fortune - to Bill Gates' charitable foundation. In a statement, Mr and Mrs Gates said they were "awed" by the donation, thought to be the largest charitable gift ever made in the United States.
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Monitoring human rights? Get a satellite.
June 22, 2006 - Peter N. Spotts, Christian Science Monitor
Satellites can monitor volcanoes, map deforestation, and help sell real estate. But can they document human-rights violations?
Yes, activists say.
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Free expression deteriorating rapidly in Africa, says NAFEO
June 21, 2006
As African heads of state prepare to visit Banjul, The Gambia, on 1-2 July 2006 for the 7th African Union (AU) Summit, a coalition of African free expression organisations is warning that the state of free expression and press freedom is deteriorating rapidly across the continent.
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Egyptian, Lebanese Journalists Win Samir Kassir Award
June 6, 2006 - IFEX
Journalists from Egypt and Lebanon have been named winners of the inaugural Samir Kassir Award for Freedom of the Press in recognition of their courage and astute coverage of political issues.
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Advocacy Groups Take Their Own Medicine
June 9, 2006 - Jim Lobe, IPS
The leaders of 11 major international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) this week decided to practice what they preach to governments and business by endorsing an "Accountability Charter" for themselves.
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Bill Triggered By Ford Foundation Would Require Funds Set Up in Michigan to Direct Half of Giving to Within State
June 14, 2006 - Ian Wilhelm, The Chronicle of Philanthropy
In a move highly criticized by the foundation world, two Michigan state lawmakers introduced legislation last week that would essentially force the Ford Foundation to direct at least half of its giving to the state.
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Following ‘serious rise’ in racist attacks, UN rights expert to visit Russia
June 13, 2006 - UN News Centre
Facing a serious rise in the number of racist attacks in Russia, including murder, especially in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, a United Nations human rights expert is to pay a six-day visit to the country next week at the invitation of the Government.
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Darfur: UNHCR field office attacked in far west
June 13, 2006 - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Relief Web
We are concerned about the security situation in Habila, in far western Darfur, after an attack last night by four armed men in military uniform on our field office, leaving one guard wounded after being shot in the leg.
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Self-harm will go on inside Guantánamo, rights group warns
June 13, 2006 - Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian
The authorities at Guantánamo were accused yesterday of blocking inmates' access to mental health care, despite dozens of suicide attempts and hundreds of cases of self-harm.
As further details emerged of three suicides, the Bush administration faced renewed criticism of the camp's conditions and its policy of indefinite detention there, as well as its dismissal of the reasons for the deaths as a publicity stunt.
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High court keeps door open to death-penalty lawsuits
June 13, 2006 - Warren Richey, Christian Science Monitor
Death-row inmates can rely on civil rights law to challenge the use of lethal injection in their executions, even after they have exhausted all their allowable appeals.
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Yahoo says no to Amnesty International on China
May 25, 2006 - Elinor Mills, Yahoo Blog
Yahoo executives on Thursday found themselves once again defending their cooperation with the Chinese government's crackdown on freedom of expression. A representative from Amnesty International USA, which describes itself as an activist shareholder of Yahoo stock, called upon Yahoo executives to ask the Chinese government to release imprisoned Internet dissidents.
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Tunisia: Freedom of expression still under siege six months after WSIS
May 26, 2006 - IFEX
According to a report prepared by members of the International Freedom of
Expression Exchange (IFEX) Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), violations of
freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of association and
other basic human rights are still rampant following the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in Tunisia in November 2005.
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PERU: Voting for the Accused
May 24, 2006 - Ángel Páez, IPS
In a seeming paradox, ex-military commander Ollanta Humala -- accused of kidnapping, torture and mass killings -- was the first-round presidential election favourite in areas that suffered major human-rights violations during Peru's counterinsurgency struggle.
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AUSTRALIA: Ignoring Abuse of Aboriginal Women, Children
May 22, 2006 - Neena Bhandari, IPS
Revelations of horrific levels of sexual abuse and violence suffered by women and children in Australia's aboriginal communities have surfaced, even as the fifth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) is underway in New York.
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Rights Group Faults U.S. for 'War Outsourcing'
May 23, 2006 - Alan Cowell, New York Times
Amnesty International today assailed the United States' use of military contractors in Iraq as "war outsourcing" and said the behavior of some contractors had diminished America's moral standing.
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Beyond Tools: Technology as a feminist agenda
May 22, 2006 - Chat Garcia Ramilo, Palgrave
Chat Garcia Ramilo argues strongly for a feminist agenda on technology. Drawing on the discussions at the AWID Forum, she shows how within the framework of women's rights technology is a determining factor in women's sexuality, representation and exploitation, and has to be seen as one more facet of violence against women. She calls on the feminist movement to engage technologies as a site of feminist political struggle.
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Rights: The Scariest Predators in the Corporate Jungle
May 22, 2006 - Thalif Deen, IPS
The world's oil, gas and mining industries account for nearly two-thirds of all violations of human rights, environmental laws and international labour standards, according to a soon-to-be-released United Nations study.
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The World Bank and the Respect for Human Rights
May 4, 2006 - Eric Toussaint, Committee for the Cancellation of the Third World Debt
“When I came to the Bank, we were not allowed to mention the word ‘corruption’. It was called the “c” word. Well, maybe we need to mention the “r” word which is ‘rights’”
James Wolfensohn, 1 March 2004
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UNITED STATES - Scalia: Keep Foreign Law Out of Decisions
May 18, 2006 - Pete Yost, Guardian Unlimited
Firing the latest round in a debate with his Supreme Court colleagues, Justice Antonin Scalia on Thursday decried the use of foreign law in interpreting the U.S. Constitution on issues ranging from the death penalty to homosexual rights.
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ZIMBABWE: HIV-positive people floundering as economy sinks
May 10, 2006 - IRIN
Newspapers headlines in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, announced last week that anti-AIDS drugs were in perilously short supply, endangering the lives of HIV-positive people.
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Turkey, Armenia and Denial
May 16, 2006 - New York Times
Turkey's self-destructive obsession with denying the Armenian genocide seems to have no limits. The Turks pulled out of a NATO exercise this week because the Canadian prime minister used the term "genocide" in reference to the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during and after World War I.
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Security Council Backs Darfur Accord
May 16, 2006 - Warren Hoge, New York Times
The Security Council unanimously passed a resolution today calling for strict observance of a new peace accord in Darfur and speeded-up arrangements on a United Nations peacekeeping force to replace the strapped African Union force now there.
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N.Y. Judge Halts AIDS Funding Restrictions
May 10, 2006 - Larry Neumeister, Associated Press
A U.S. policy that forces groups fighting AIDS overseas to denounce prostitution in order to receive federal funding violates free speech rights, a judge ruled Tuesday.
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New U.N. Rights Group Includes Six Nations With Poor Records
May 9, 2006 - Warren Hoge, New York Times
Six nations with poor human rights records were among those elected to the new Human Rights Council on Tuesday, although notorious violators that had belonged to the predecessor Human Rights Commission did not succeed in winning places in the new group.
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Despite U.N. Force, Child Soldiers Multiply in Congo
April 26, 2006 - Thalif Deen, IPS
The United Nations, which is fielding over 19,800 peacekeeping troops in war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is virtually fighting a losing battle to contain the ongoing recruitment of child soldiers in a country the size of Western Europe.
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World Press Freedom Day
May 3, 2006 - International Freedom of Expression Exchange
IFEX members and other free expression advocates around the globe are celebrating World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2006 - a day to remind the world of the crucial role a free press plays in strengthening democracies and fostering development.
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Yahoo cited in jailing of China Internet writer
April 28, 2006
Yahoo Inc. has been cited in a Chinese court decision to jail a dissident Internet writer for 10 years for subversion in 2003 -- the fourth such case to surface implicating the U.S. Internet giant.
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Learning to Savor a Full Life, Love Life Included
April 21, 2006 - Jane Gross, New York Times
In what experts say is the latest frontier in disability rights, a small but growing number of psychologists, educators and researchers are promoting social opportunities and teaching the skills to enjoy them.
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CHINA: Bush Urged to Highlight Free Expression at Summit Talks
April 20, 2006
Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have called on U.S. President George W. Bush to put freedom of expression on the agenda when he meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington, D.C. for bilateral talks on 20 April 2006.
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UNITED STATES: Migrant Rights Debate Hits the Streets (Again)
April 10, 2006 - Haider Rizvi, IPS
An estimated two million people took to the streets across the United States Monday calling for comprehensive immigration reform that treats immigrants fairly and does not criminalise undocumented workers.
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Violent clashes amid Nepal curfew
April 10, 2006 - BBC News
Police in the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, have used teargas and batons against stone-throwing protesters defying a curfew. Three people have died in two days of unrest, part of widespread anti-government protests.
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SIERRA LEONE: Taylor at War Crimes Court
March 29, 2006
The transfer of former Liberian President Charles Taylor to the U.N.-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone is an enormous step toward ensuring justice for atrocities in West Africa, Human Rights Watch said today.
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KENYA: State violated rights of squatters
April 4, 2006 - Richard Chesos, The Standard
The Government massively violated the rights of thousands of people it evicted from its forests recently, its own watchdog has said. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights on Monday criticised the evictions, saying neither the law nor internationally accepted regulations were followed.
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Abusive Practice of “Unmodified” Electroshock Treatment Abolished at Main Psychiatric Facility in Turkey
March 31, 2006 - Mental Disability Rights International
Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI)
announced this week that the use of electroconvulsive or “shock” treatment
(ECT) without the use of anesthesia and muscle relaxants (known as
unmodified ECT) has been abolished at Bakirköy. The facility, located in Istanbul,
has more than 2900 beds and is Turkey’s largest psychiatric hospital.
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Water is not declared to be a human right at World Water Forum
March 22, 2006 - Diego Cevallos, IPS
The assertion that access to water is a human right was not included in the ministerial declaration adopted at the Fourth World Water Forum, which ended in Mexico on Wednesday, World Water Day.
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Major Church Groups Back Undocumented Workers
March 28, 2006 - Ana Laura del Toro and Lisa Vives, IPS
Dozens of Roman Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian and other church leaders were among the million plus protesters who filled the streets from coast to coast in a Mar. 25 rally against the bill.
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Afghanistan: Women, Socially Bound and Officially Neglected
March 28, 2006 - Zarghona Salihi and Habiburahman Ibrahimi, Pajhwok Afghan News
Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies from delivery-related complications. Girls have minimal access to education in many parts of the country and forced marriages widespread, say rights watchdogs.
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ACLU Calls on U.N. Human Rights Committee to Hold U.S. Government Accountable
March 13, 2006 - American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union today criticized the United States for violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a major human rights treaty the U.S. ratified in 1992. In remarks to the 86th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the ACLU called for a rigorous investigation into violations of the treaty.
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Action by World Bank’s IFC on Workers’ Rights a Major Step Forward
February 22, 2006 - International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
The ICFTU has applauded yesterday’s adoption by the International Finance Corporation (the private sector lending arm of the World Bank) of a new loan performance standard on labour rights and working conditions.
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Yemen: Crackdown on the Press Escalating
March 14, 2006 - CPJ
Yemen's private media is known in the Arab world as being one of the most boisterous in the region, aggressively criticising government policies and exposing corruption. In the past two years, however, authorities have sought to muzzle the press by using increasingly harsh methods, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
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CHINA: They Still Don’t Get It!
March 14, 2006
3M Company was unsuccessful in convincing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow the corporation to exclude a shareholder resolution from the proxy material calling for management to implement the China Business Principles, which promotes human and labor rights in the People’s Republic of China.
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Dispute hits UN rights watchdog
March 13, 2006 - BBC News
A session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission has been suspended for a week amid disagreement over plans to reform the Geneva-based body.
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Protests at Coca Cola sponsorship of World Water Forum
March 11, 2006 - Goska Romanowicz, Edie newsroom
Coca Cola's sponsorship of the upcoming World Water Forum, the global summit aiming to improve access to freshwater worldwide, is out of line with the event's stated objective say Indian campaigners.
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Medics to U.S.: End force-feedings
March 10, 2006 - Reuters, CNN.com
More than 250 doctors from seven countries urged the U.S. government on Friday to abandon force-feeding and the use of restraints on hunger strikers at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
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Blueprint for new, more effective UN human rights body unveiled
February 23, 2006 - UN News Centre
Seeking to dramatically bolster the protection of human rights around the world, the President of the United Nations General Assembly today unveiled the draft blueprint for a new Human Rights Council with higher status and greater accountability than the much-criticized Human Rights Commission that meets yearly in Geneva.
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UN human rights experts call for dialogue in wake of cartoon controversy
February 9, 2006 - UN News Centre
Three independent United Nations human rights experts have strongly deplored the recent controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad as well as the violent reactions that ensued while urging all to come together in a spirit of dialogue.
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Darfur: New Attacks in Chad Documented
February 5, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
Militias based in Darfur are launching cross-border raids on villages in Chad on an almost daily basis, killing civilians, burning villages, and stealing cattle in a pattern of attacks that show signs of ethnic bias, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Russia: Activist’s Conviction Hurts Freedom of Expression
February 4, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
The conviction of a Russian human rights defender who highlighted abuses in the conflict in Chechnya is an unacceptable infringement on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said today. On February 3, a court in Nizhny Novgorod convicted Stanislav Dmitrievsky, executive director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society and editor of the organization’s newspaper Pravozashchita, on charges of “inciting racial hatred,” and handed down a two-year suspended sentence.
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Libya: Human Rights Watch Calls for Urgent Reforms
February 1, 2006 - IFEX Communiqué, International Freedom of Expression eXchange
The Libyan government has taken important steps to improve human rights in recent months, but freedom of expression and other rights continue to be severely restricted, says Human Rights Watch in a new report.
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Delegates at UN meeting on disability rights see it as major step forward
January 31, 2006 - UN News Centre
Persons with disabilities who have gathered at United Nations Headquarters from all over the world to negotiate the first-ever convention on their rights expressed confidence today that the session will pave the way for a full agreement guaranteeing protections and preventing discrimination, but they said it was just the beginning of their battle for equality.
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[Washington state] Lawmakers pass gay-rights legislation
January 28, 2006 - Chicago Tribune
Washington lawmakers passed a gay-rights bill Friday in a major victory for activists who had watched the measure fail in the Legislature for nearly 30 years. The measure adds sexual orientation to a state law banning discrimination in housing, employment and insurance on the basis of race, gender, age, disability, religion, marital status and other factors. Sixteen states have passed similar laws.
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160 NGOs Identify Essential Elements of a U.N. Human Rights Council
January 19, 2006 - Human Rights Watch
In a joint letter to Foreign Ministers and U.N. Permanent Representatives, 160
NGOs committed to a common position on the essential elements of the U.N.
Human Rights Council. The NGOs state their commitment to the creation of a
strong council that will protect and promote human rights better than the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights.
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Protecting rights of disabled requires new attitude more than new funds, UN official says
January 27, 2006 - UN News Centre
Attitudes, rather than resource constraints, often create the strongest barriers to the enjoyment of rights by persons with disabilities, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights today told a UN committee in New York that is drafting the first-ever treaty on disability rights.
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[Florida] Senate panel votes to increase penalties for slavery
January 12, 2006 - Michael Peltier
Prompted by sordid tales of intimidation and servitude, a legislative panel Wednesday voted to bolster penalties for those who profit from the illegal trafficking of humans. South Florida in particular has become a focal point in a growing investigation into the long-silent world of modern-day slavery, whose victims toil in fields, kitchens and streets as farm laborers, domestic servants, prostitutes and sex slaves.
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Disabled Youth Plead for Inclusion at UN meeting on Disability Rights Treaty
January 18, 2006 - UN News Centre
Disabled young people from Bangladesh, China and the United Kingdom today urged a United Nations committee drafting the first-ever convention on disability rights to address the exclusion and neglect of an estimated 150-200 million disabled children around the world.
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Uzbekistan: Human Rights Crisis Worsening
January 18, 2006 - IFEX Communiqué, International Freedom of Expression Exchange
The Uzbek government is escalating its campaign of harassing and threatening human rights activists and international organisations as part of an attempt to smother civil society and eliminate non-governmental organizations (NGO), reports Freedom House. Last week, the IFEX member became the latest NGO to be denied permission to operate in the country after a civil court in Tashkent ordered the group suspended for the next six months.
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BOLIVIA: Indigenizing a Nation: Morales Victory Ushers in Prospects of Change
January 11, 2006 - Bret Gustafson, Weekly Indigenous News
On December 18, 2005 Bolivians made history at the polls, as 54 percent of the country’s voters chose Evo Morales, an indigenous Aimara leader of the combative coca-growers’ unions, to become president.
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More Government Spying on Nonprofits Revealed
January 11, 2006 - OMB Watch
New documents released to the press in December 2005 show federal agencies have been infiltrating and conducting surveillance on a wide range of nonprofits, in what appears to be a policy of treating lawful dissent as an act of terrorism. An NBC story revealed that the Pentagon has used a program meant to protect U.S. military installations, in order to spy on peace and other groups. In addition, FBI files released as part of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in December 2005 show investigations of groups concerned with everything from poverty relief to the environment.
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The Disappeared - A New Treaty
January 17, 2006 - Steve Crawshaw, World Today
Not for the first time, world justice is being tugged in two opposite directions. The latest developments in international law mean that the duty to prosecute those involved in forced disappearances – arbitrary arrest, frequently followed by torture and murder – is clearer than ever. After two decades of discussion a key new draft treaty agreed in September, is likely to be adopted by the UN General Assembly this year. At the same time, the world’s most powerful government apparently believes it is authorised to disappear people if and when it wishes.
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Bangladesh: Islamic Militants Target Journalists
January 10, 2006 - IFEX Communiqué, International Freedom of Expression Exchange
In Bangladesh, widely considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the press, 2005 was a year in which Islamic militants increasingly targeted journalists, say Media Watch, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
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Inuit Seek US Attention to Global Warming
December 29, 2005 - Talia Whyte, Cultural Survival
In an attempt to open a dialogue with the United States government about the effects of global warming in the Arctic region, on December 7, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the elected Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), submitted a petition to the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking protection from violations of the human rights of Inuit resulting from the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions.
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Russia's Anti-West Offensive
December 27, 2005 - New York Times
To no one's great surprise, Russia's Parliament voted overwhelmingly last week to increase control of charities, foundations and other nongovernmental organizations in Russia. The vote endorsed a slightly better version of the bill than the original one. Under pressure from the West, President Vladimir Putin dropped proposed rules that would have forced foreign groups to register as purely Russian groups.
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Secretary-General voices full confidence in UN human rights chief after US criticism
December 9, 2005 - UN News Centre
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has re-affirmed his “absolute full confidence” in United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour after United States’ UN Ambassador John Bolton termed as “inappropriate” statements in which she condemned holding prisoners in secret centres or handing them over to third countries.
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Putin's uncivil crackdown
December 9, 2005 - Lara Iglitzin, Seattle Times
The leaders of Russia's nongovernmental sector have been predicting for more than a year that civil society would be next on President Vladimir Putin's crackdown on democracy. Now it seems as if their predictions are coming true with a vengeance.
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HUMAN RIGHTS DAY – Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour
December 7, 2005
ON TERRORISTS AND TORTURERS
The absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice, is under attack. The principle once believed to be unassailable – the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person -- is becoming a casualty of the so-called "war on terror".
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Philippines: Justice Achieved in Journalist's Murder
December 6, 2005 - IFEX Communique, International Freedom of Expression Exchange
In what IFEX members have hailed as a significant victory for press freedom in the Philippines and a testament to the courage of individuals who stand up for justice, a judge has sentenced a former police officer to jail for the murder of journalist Edgar Damalerio.
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Racial Poverty Gaps in U.S. Amount to Human Rights Violation, Says U.N.
November 1, 2005 - Haider Rizvi
Despite enormous wealth and various federal and social
welfare schemes at work, the United States is failing to help millions of
its people trying to get out of poverty, according to an independent United
Nations rights expert.
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Grass-Roots Activism Faces Setback in Russia
November 24, 2005 - Peter Finn, Washington Post
The Russian parliament took a step toward curbing grass-roots activism in the country when it overwhelmingly passed a draft law on Wednesday that would bring local nongovernmental organizations under strict state supervision. The law would also restrict the ability of Russian nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, to accept foreign grants or employ foreigners.
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The Very Foundation of Conservatism
November 28, 2005 - John J. Miller, New York Times
Washington — "Please give me a date," William E. Simon used to ask the industrialist John M. Olin years ago, when the two men discussed Mr. Olin's desire to have his charitable foundation go out of business at some point in the future. Yet Mr. Olin always rebuffed Mr. Simon, who was president of the John M. Olin Foundation for 23 years. "You figure it out," he would reply.
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Journalists, Rights Activists attacked by authorities at World Summit on the Information Society
November 14, 2005 - ARTICLE 19, International Freedom of Expression Exchange
Tunisian authorities are harassing and physically assaulting journalists and human rights activists attending the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society.
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RUSSIA - Managing Civil Society: Are NGOs Next?
November 22, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
On November 23, 2005, the State Duma, Russia's parliament, is scheduled
to consider a draft law that would dramatically restrict the work of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in Russia. The
representative offices of foreign groups, including Human Rights Watch and
also foreign foundations, think tanks, and social service providers, would
have to re-register as local membership organizations or face liquidation. The
law would furthermore allow far greater government interference in the work
of Russian NGOs, putting them at serious risk of losing their independence.
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This isn't the real America
November 14, 2005 - Jimmy Carter, Los Angeles Times
In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.
These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.
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Iranian Journalist Awarded Golden Pen of Freedom
November 23, 2005 - IFEX Communiqué, IFEX
The World Association of Newspapers has awarded the 2006 Golden Pen of Freedom prize to jailed Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji and called for his immediate release. Ganji is serving the fourth year of a six-year sentence and has reportedly been tortured.
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Endangered Journalists
November 22, 2005 - Washington Post
IT'S A MEASURE of the political dangers facing journalists in much of the world that two of the four winners of this year's International Press Freedom Awards couldn't make it to New York City to pick up their prizes tonight. A third will be there, but doesn't dare go home. And the fourth is, for the first time in the history of the awards, not a journalist at all, but a media lawyer from a nation that basically has no more free journalists to honor.
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UN Human Rights Committee Blasts Canada
November 3, 2005 - Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA)
Discrimination against Aboriginal women and women prisoners, and negative impacts on women caused by cuts to social assistance and social programmes, drew severe criticism from the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which just completed its 5th review of Canada’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
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Guatemala faces hunger 'timebomb'
November 10, 2005 - BBC News
Parts of Guatemala are facing a starvation "timebomb" in the aftermath of Hurricane Stan, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.
Hundreds of people were buried by landslides after a week of intense rains in early October.
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Sri Lanka: Finally, a chance to escape plantation
October 23, 2005 - Martin Regg Cohn, Toronto Star
This article presents an important story on the exploitation of plantation workers, emphasizing the significance of human and worker rights for the exercise of food security rights (not separated in original UN charter). Ethno-cultural discrimination is a central aspect of former colonial and cheap food system, and confirms that rights to food cannot be separated from access to other human rights.
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Saving Myanmar
October 27, 2005 - Los Angeles Times
Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner and architect of South Africa's post-apartheid reconciliation, put the matter clearly: The United Nations has an "open-and-shut case" to intervene in Myanmar to restore democracy, deliver aid and win freedom for political prisoners.
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Nigeria: Journalists Push for Legal Reforms to Safeguard Free Expression
October 26, 2005 - International Freedom of Expression Exchange, IFEX Communiqué
Journalists, editors and other media professionals from Nigeria have called on their government to pass a long-delayed access to information bill and revoke repressive laws that inhibit press freedom and freedom of expression.
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US: A Stepped-Up Assault on Wal-Mart
October 20, 2005 - Aaron Bernstein, Business Week
A scathing documentary and a coordinated campaign by labour, religious, and environmental groups spell more trouble for the retailing giant.
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Coca-Cola: In hot water
October 6, 2005 - Economist.com
“WATER is to Coca-Cola as clean energy is to BP.” So declares Jeff Seabright, Coca-Cola's manager of environmental affairs, when asked about the firm's new global water strategy. The fizzy-drinks maker unveiled that strategy as part of its annual environmental report, released this week. “We need to manage this issue or it will manage us,” says Mr Seabright.
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Counter-terror steps, violate human rights in UK, US, Iraq – UN expert
October 10, 2005 - UN News Centre
Proposed anti-terror laws in the United Kingdom might undermine human rights, United States military commissions on terror suspects violate the right to a fair trial, and Iraq’s special tribunal breaks international standards and should be replaced by a United Nations-backed independent court, a new report by an independent UN legal expert says.
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Global court targets Uganda cult in first case
October 6, 2005 - Evelyn Leopold, Reuters
The International Criminal Court has issued
arrest warrants for five leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a
Ugandan cult notorious for raping, maiming and killing children, a U.N.
official said on Thursday.
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Human Rights and Katrina Evacuees
September 14, 2005 - Farah Jasmine Griffin, NPR
Commentator Farah Jasmine Griffin ponders whether the mass displacement in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina constitutes a violation of human rights. Griffin is a professor and director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University.
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Annan hails Summit's 'intellectual breakthrough' on security, development, rights
October 6, 2005 - UN News Centre
Beyond specific commitments ranging from strengthening humanitarian mechanisms to
reforming UN management, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today hailed a global mind-change at last
month's United Nations World Summit that linked security, development and human rights.
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US Senate backs detainee rights
October 6, 2005 - BBC News
US senators have voted overwhelmingly to outlaw cruel or degrading treatment of detainees held in US custody abroad.
The Senate voted 90-9 in favour of the motion, which senators said would lay down rules for troops and officials carrying out interrogations.
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AFGHANISTAN: Afghan war crimes trial opens
October 5, 2005 - BBC News
Two former Afghan military intelligence officials have gone on trial in The Hague, accused of human rights violations during the 1980s.
Both men, who deny the charges, were arrested in the Netherlands last year.
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GUATEMALA: Death threats against human rights activists
September 30, 2005 - Weekly Indigenous News
Human rights activists working with the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) have received anonymous death threats in attempts to intimidate them to discontinue their work.
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At 60, the United Nations is still taking fire
September 30, 2005 - Bill Berkowitz, Media Transparency
The Hudson Institute's new 'EYE On The UN' website aims to make sure the UN is transparent, accountable and doing what the US wants.
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2005 World Summit Outcome: Achievements in Brief
September 27, 2005 - United Nations
The world’s leaders, meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 14 to 16 September, agreed to take
action on a range of global challenges.
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UGANDA: Sedition law must be abolished
September 26, 2005 - ARTICLE 19
The law of sedition should be obsolete in democratic societies, warns ARTICLE 19, who supports the petition submitted last week to Uganda's Constitutional Court by journalist Andrew Mwenda which challenges the constitutionality of the country's sedition law. The law of sedition is the crime of speaking words against the state, its basic premise being that it is wrong to criticize public figures or institutions.
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PHILLIPINES: Cordillera People Demand Presidential Ouster
September 9, 2005 - Angela Sterritt, Weekly Indigenous News
The Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) of the Northern Luzon region in the Philippines has joined the nationwide movement calling for the immediate ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
As part of a nationally coordinated protest against the president on August 23, indigenous peoples in the Cordillera region condemned the economic dislocation and human rights violations brought about by intense militarization under Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration.
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A Surgeon’s Touch
September 1, 2005 - Howard Zinn, The Progressive
As I write this, the frightening violence in Iraq continues, England and the United States are in a state of fear about suicide bombs, and the Senate is about to confirm a new, conservative Supreme Court justice. So it may seem peculiar to bring up a subject that is either at the far edge of all our attention, or over the edge and invisible. But here I go.
On August 3, Human Rights Watch announced that the Bush Administration “appears poised to resume the production of anti-personnel mines” for the first time since 1997. It noted that “the Pentagon has requested a total of $1.3 billion” for a new type of land mine.
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http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/15/global11750.htm
September 16, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Leaders who attended the U.N. summit this week must now redouble their efforts to fulfill key pending initiatives like the proposed Human Rights Council, Human Rights Watch said today. At the summit, world leaders agreed to establish a Human Rights Council, intended to replace the discredited Commission on Human Rights, where abusive governments have been able to block condemnation of their human rights records.
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UZBEKISTAN: Uzbeks Shut Second U.S. Charity in Four Days
September 13, 2005 - Reuters, New York Times
Uzbekistan, increasingly hostile toward foreign non-governmental organizations it accuses of fomenting revolution in the ex-Soviet state, has shut a second U.S. charity in four days, the charity said on Tuesday. A worker for U.S.-based educational charity IREX, who did not want his name to be disclosed, told Reuters that Tashkent city court ordered the organization on Monday to suspend its activities for six months.
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EGYPT: Election Coverage Favours Mubarak: CIHRS
September 8, 2005 - IFEX Communique, International Freedom of Expression eXchange
As Egyptians headed to the polls on 7 September 2005 in the country's first multi-party presidential elections, an interim report by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) has found that media coverage has so far been biased in favour of incumbent Hosni Mubarak.
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UNITED STATES: Western Shoshone appeal for United Nations intervention
August 19, 2005 - Brenda Norrell., Indian Country Today
In an urgent appeal to halt the assault on ancestral lands, the Western Shoshone Nation filed an urgent action request before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in August.
The request challenges the U.S. government's assertion of federal ownership of nearly 90 percent of Western Shoshone lands.
Joe Kennedy, Western Shoshone, was among those urging immediate action to halt the United States and gold and energy corporations.
''Our traditional laws tell us we were placed here as caretakers of the land,'' Kennedy said. ''As part of the Western Shoshone Nation, we will not stand idly by and allow the U.S. federal government to cement its hold on our ancestral land base.''
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Planned Borneo palm oil plantation threatens orangutans: WWF
August 12, 2005 - Terra Daily
A proposed oil palm plantation covering 1.8 million hectares along the Indonesian Borneo and Malaysian Sarawak border will have devastating effects on the wildlife and indigenous communities in the area, according to global conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The $8 billion project would be funded by Chinese investors, and would employ about 500,000 workers.
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Intercultural University Opens in Chiapas
August 29, 2005 - Nadia Savova, Cultural Survival
The Intercultural University of Chiapas in San Cristobal de las Casas opened on August 22 to serve as a center for the protection and promotion of Mexico’s indigenous languages and cultures.
"Intercultural universities are very important phenomenon, because they create development proposals from the perspective of the indigenous people, and are not imposed by the dominant culture," said Eloy Lopez, a Nahuatl indigenous representative and rural projects coordinator at the Center for Rural Development Studies (CESDER) in Sautla, Puebla.
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Multiculturalism is not the culprit
August 30, 2005 - James A. Goldston, International Herlad Tribune
The British multicultural model in crisis," the French newspaper Le Monde trumpeted last week. Many in Britain appeared to agree. Multiculturalism has gone too far, some observers said, leading to "voluntary apartheid" and "separate development" of Britain's increasingly numerous ethnic groups.
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VENEZUELA: President Chavez grants land titles to indigenous groups
August 9, 2005 - THAIS LEON, Washington Post
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez announced on August 9 that he has "reversed centuries of injustice" by granting six indigenous communities title to their ancestral lands, according to The Washington Post. Chavez further stated that he hoped the Venezuelan government would return land titles to 15 other indigenous communities by the end of the year. The titles recognize original land ownership of the six groups, which comprise approximately 4,000 people and a territory covering 314,000 acres in the country's eastern states of Anzoategui and Monagas.
With his promise to bestow additional land titles, however, Chavez cautioned that the process of granting legal ownership must respect Venezuela's "territorial unity." According to the Washington Post, he said, "Don't ask me to give you the state's rights to exploit mines, to exploit oil." An estimated 300,000 people belong to 28 indigenous groups in Venezuela, with the majority living in the southeastern region of the country.
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UNITED STATES: Alaska Natives affirm global warming for Senators
August 18, 2005 - Seattle Times
After visiting Alaska Native communities, Senators John McCain of Arizona, Hillary Clinton of New York, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have been persuaded of the existence of global warming. "We are convinced that the overwhelming scientific evidence indicated that climate change is taking place and human activities play a very large role," McCain said, according to the Seattle Times.
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BOTSWANA: Special Rapporteur presses for negotiations
August 9, 2005 - Rappaport News
Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples, recently spoke out against the Botswana government's eviction of the indigenous San from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, noting that officials should have consulted with the hunter-gatherer tribe prior to their forced relocation.
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CHAD: Habré Henchmen Ousted
August 12, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Six accomplices of Chad’s former dictator, Hissène Habré, have been removed from state security jobs in the Central African country in the last week, Human Rights Watch said today. The Chadian government’s move follows a report last month by Human Rights Watch naming these six and 35 other leading Habré-era figures, many accused of torture and killings, who still hold key posts in Chad.
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NCAA Issues Indian Mascots Guidelines
August 22, 2005 - Allison Thresher, Cultural Survival
In a move lauded by many American Indian activists, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Executive Committee presented its policy concerning colleges' and universities' use of American Indian mascots on August 5.
Beginning in February 2006, the new policy will effectively bar any NCAA-member school that uses "offensive or hostile imagery" from hosting championship events. In addition, the display of certain images and mascots, such as the University of Illinois' "Chief Illiniwek," will not be permitted in playoff tournaments.
The NCAA Committee on Minority Interests and Opportunities has been investigating the use of Indian mascots since 2002.
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Montagnards Repatriated to Vietnam Without International Monitoring
August 15, 2005 - Kristen Kelley, Cultural Survival
Over 100 indigenous Montagnard political refugees were forced onto buses from Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh in the early morning of July 20 and returned to Vietnam's Central Highlands after their asylum cases were rejected by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Phnom Penh.
The indigenous community of about 2,000 members, comprising of the Mnong, Ede, Jarai, Koho, and Bahnar ethnic groups, fled to Cambodia in 2001 to escape Vietnamese laws that banned public gatherings, encouraged socioeconomic discrimination, and permitted lowlanders to use their tribal lands.
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LAOS: Poppy eradication policy displaces thousands
August 15, 2005 - Cultural Survival, BBC World News
As a result of increased anti-drug pressure from the United States, Laotian officials have displaced 65,000 hill tribe people from the mountains in northern Laos to lowland settlements since 2000. Recent surveys by a UN development consultant show that the relocated indigenous people lack food and basic necessities and the mortality rate has risen by four percent as a result of increased exposure to disease. The Laotian government previously tolerated opium poppy cultivation in the northern hills for small scale use as medicine and traditional ceremonies. Development specialists and critics of the government's eradication policy suggest that Laos implement a legal quota of opium poppy for pharmaceutical companies to revive indigenous peoples' way of life in the highlands. According to the BBC, Laotian authorities are currently resisting this solution.
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UNITED STATES: Taíno arrested on ceremonial grounds
August 15, 2005 - Cultural Survival, IPS News Agency
A group of seven Taíno leaders were arrested yesterday for their 19-day occupation of the state-run archeological Caguana Ceremonial Center in Utuado, Puerto Rico, according to a recent email from Roberto Mucaro Borrero, the President and Chairman of the United Confederation of Taíno People US Regional Coordinating Office. The leaders protested at Caguana, a focal point for Taíno resurgence, to bring attention to the wide desecration of Taíno sacred sites.
The Taíno protest recent construction and renovation projects at Caguana that have closed access to the site where Taíno conduct ceremonies. Protesters are concerned with rampant grave robbing and disturbance on the island as housing and industrial development expand. They also accuse the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of removing remains from a burial field in recent months, according to Indian Country Today.
Naniki Reyes Ocasio, one of the protesters, has been on a hunger-strike, pledging not to eat until Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila agreed to meet with the Taíno leaders. Organizations represented in the protest include the Caney Quinto Mundo, the Consejo General de Taínos Boricanos, and the United Confederation of Taíno People, according to Indian Country Today. Taíno leaders want the US Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act enforced for Taíno ancestral burial and ceremonial grounds in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
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Niger famine highlights wider W Africa hunger - WFP
July 26, 2005 - Reuters, Reuters AlertNet
Niger faces the most acute food shortage in West Africa but it is only one of a swathe of countries in the region ravaged by hunger and often forgotten by donors, the United Nations food aid agency said on Tuesday.
"Natural disasters, civil conflicts and just plain poverty play right across the region," said World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Chris Endean.
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Panel on the Nonprofit Sector Releases Governance Reform Recommendations
August 9, 2005 - Mary Ann Stein, Moriah Fund
Last year Senator Grassley, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asked Independent Sector to create a panel of leaders from the charitable sector to recommend actions to strengthen governance, ethical conduct, and accountability within public charities and private foundations. The Panel has just released a 116 page report to Congress and the Nonprofit Sector available on line at: www.nonprofitpanel.org/final.
The recommendations address topics to strengthen governance, reporting, transparency, and propose new penalties. According to the authors the recommendations seek to maintain the crucial balance between legitimate oversight and protecting the independence that charitable organizations need to remain innovative and effective. There are additional issues that the Panel plans to examine during the summer.
Key recommendations, which are summarized here, include:
1. Congress should increase resources for state and federal enforcement and oversight.
2. (Forms 990, 990-EZ, and 990PF) should be improved so they provide more accurate, complete, and timely information for federal and state regulators, managers of charitable organizations, and the public. Barriers to requiring electronic filing should be eliminated and penalties should be imposed for willful omissions and misrepresentations. Boards of charitable organizations, or appropriate committees, should review the Form 990 series returns.
3. The IRS should focus its resources on review and investigation of the current returns filed by charitable organizations. Boards of directors are encouraged to undertake a full review of their organizations’ governing documents and policies at least once every five years.
4. Congress should require charitable organizations with one million dollars or more in annual revenues to conduct an audit and attach audited financial statements to their Form 990 series returns. Organizations with annual returns between $250,000 and one million dollars should have their financial statements reviewed by an independent public accountant.
5. Every charitable organization should provide more detailed information about its operations, including methods it uses to evaluate the outcomes of programs, to the public through its annual report, website, and other means.
6. Laws and regulations governing donor-advised funds should be strengthened to ensure that donors or related parties do not receive inappropriate benefits from these funds. Tax laws should be amended to define and regulate donor advised funds including a) requiring sponsoring charities to make minimum distributions of five percent of aggregate donor-advised fund assets and b) prohibiting sponsoring charities from making payments to private foundations or the fund’s donors, advisors, or related parties. Penalties should be imposed for violations. Sponsoring charities should also be required to disclose aggregate information about their donor-advised funds on their Form 990.
7. To curb abuse by Type III Supporting Organizations, Congress should establish minimum distribution requirements, prohibit payments to or for the benefit of donors or any related party, and institute rules to increase the voice of the supported organizations in the governance of the Type III organization and prohibit sponsoring organizations from supporting more than five entities or donor controlled organizations.
8. All tax-exempt organizations, including those not currently required to file tax returns, should be subject to the same requirements as taxable entities with regard to reporting their participation in potentially abusive “listed” and other “reportable” tax shelter transactions, and penalties should be levied for failure to report.
9. Congress should strengthen the rules for the appraisals taxpayers can use to substantiate deductions claimed for property donated to charitable organizations and increase penalties for abusing claimants and appraisers.
10. Compensation to board members of charitable organizations is discouraged. When given, the amount of and reasons for the compensation should be disclosed. Congress should prohibit public charities from providing loans to board members and increase penalties on board members who receive or approve excessive compensation.
11. Charities should disclose more clearly the compensation paid to their chief executive officer, other “disqualified persons” and to the five highest compensated employees. Suspected employees should be required to demonstrate reasonableness and penalties should be increased.
12. Tax exempt 501© (3)s should establish and enforce policies that provide clear guidance on their travel rules, including the types of expenses that can be reimbursed and the documentation required to receive reimbursement.
13. Tax exempt organizations should generally required having a minimum of three members on their governing boards. At least one third of public charities boards should be independent (i.e. not compensated or related to a compensated employee). Boards should establish mechanisms to ensure boards carry out their oversight functions and are aware of their responsibilities.
14. Boards should include financially literate directors and, if audited independently, should have an audit committee.
15. Charitable organizations should adopt and enforce a conflict of interest policy consistent with their state laws and organizations’ needs.
PLEASE NOTE: This is a liberal summary. I advise careful reading of the document—at least the executive summary –and following progress of the recommendations through the Congress.
It's worth bringing tyrants to justice
August 10, 2005 - Ken Roth, International Herald Tribune
Bringing to justice those who commit atrocities has obvious appeal. It provides redress for victims and their families, punishes perpetrators, and deters others from replicating their crimes. But is the price too high? Critics argue that the threat of prosecution compels dictators to cling to power rather than step down, or that it encourages abusive combatants to fight on rather than sue for peace. Yet a decade of experience with international tribunals suggests these fears are overblown.
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Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful
July 30, 2005 - New York Times
Former President Carter said Saturday the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.
Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq as ''unnecessary and unjust.''
''I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.,'' he told a news conference at the Baptist World Alliance's centenary conference in Birmingham, England. ''I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts.''
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UN States Have Treaty Obligations on Niger Famine
July 14, 2005 - United Nations
With 3.6 million people in Niger facing malnutrition and the international response being "totally insufficient," the United Nations expert on the right to food today said that under international human rights treaties States Parties were obliged to provide urgent assistance to any UN Member State threatened by famine.
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Aboriginal Women Lack Legal Representation in Domestic Abuse Cases
August 8, 2005 - Katrina Randall, Cultural Survival
Although they are at a high risk for domestic abuse, Aboriginal women and children in Australia lack legal representation, a federal report says.
A June 2005 report by the Australian Federal Parliamentary Committee, Access of Indigenous Australians to Law and Justice Services, detailed several reasons for the justice system s inability to fully represent indigenous women in domestic violence cases. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services (ATSILS) is often restricted in providing services to women and children who are victims of domestic violence because it is already representing the offender, the report says.
"If an offense is committed, the police act fairly quickly to charge somebody," the Northern Territory Legal Aid Commission, states in the federal report. "The offender therefore appears at the Aboriginal Legal Services beforehand, either in custody or because they have been required to go to court. By the time the victim ... appears, ATSILS is conflicted from providing any assistance in family, crime compensation, or domestic violence matters.
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AUSTRALIA: Reports show severe health disparities
August 5, 2005 - Australian Associated Press
Released on July 12, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Council of Australian Government (COAG) issued two reports showing that the poor living conditions and lack of proper health care of indigenous peoples in Australia are major factors in disparities of health, reported the Australian Associated Press (AAP). The study commissioned by COAG and the Bureau's The Australian Social Trends report showed that indigenous peoples are still most likely to die young, drop out of school, be incarcerated, are the most impoverished and have higher levels of smoking, obesity, and diabetes. The reports showed that in both remote and urban indigenous communities the life expectancy is 17 years lower than the general population.
The Australian Medical Association has repeated their request for $400 million in funding to target the third world conditions of Indigenous communities, as reported by AAP. The Australian Green Party is calling for Indigenous health to be made a national priority. Senator Rachel Siewert told the AAP that although Australia refers to itself as a first world nation, the life expectancy of the aboriginal population is worse than many third world nations.
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COLOMBIA: Indigenous women march to combat zone in show of solidarity
August 8, 2005 - Inter Press Service News Agency
On July 23, more than 1,250 indigenous women and community leaders caravanned to the Nasa community of Toribío, Southwestern Colombia, to show solidarity with their "family" caught in the middle of the country s civil war since mid-April. Organized by the Women s Coordinating Committee of the Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca, which was awarded the Millennium Peace Prize for Women in 2001, the caravan mainly consisted of Nasa women and afro-Colombians, but also had participants of Wayúu, Kankuama, U&nbps;wa, Uitota, Tikuna and Pijao descent. Four-hundred members of the "armed" Nasa Guard accompanied the women on the trip. The Guard, only armed with colorful sticks, was awarded the National Peace Prize in 2004.
The Nasa, also known as the Paez, are the second largest indigenous group in Colombia, accounting for 300,000 of Colombia's one million indigenous peoples. According to IPS News Agency, they demand that their right to remain neutral in the war be recognized and that the paramilitary, the military, and the leftist guerillas leave their territory.
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International Free Speech Groups Urge Tunisia to End Internet Censorship
July 14, 2005 - Geoffrey Chan, International Freedom of Expression eXchange
International free expression groups have launched a new website detailing the state of free expression and human rights in Tunisia.
The Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of 13 organisations belonging to the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX), says Tunisia - the host of the World Summit on the Information Society in November 2005 - should show its commitment to upholding the principles of freedom of expression by ceasing the practice of blocking news and information websites that are critical of the Tunisian government.
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Rights Advocates Condemn Iran for Executing 2 Young Men
July 29, 2005 - Nazila Fathi, New York Times
Human rights advocates have condemned the
execution last week of two young men convicted of
sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy, calling it a
violation of international law. The ages of the two
men were not announced by Iranian officials at the
time of the execution, which took place on July 19 in
Mashad in northeast Iran. But Human Rights Watch
said they were 18 and 19, and the younger man was
a juvenile when the assault took place.
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IRAQ: Iraqi Constitution Must Not Erode Women's Rights
July 28, 2005 - Reuters AlertNet
Iraq's permanent constitution should not erode the rights of women, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the chairman of the constitutional drafting committee. The committee is due to transfer the draft constitution to the Iraqi National Assembly by August 15 for debate and approval. "Members of the drafting committee will have to decide whether to protect women's rights or erode them for political gain," said Janet Walsh, acting Women's Rights director at Human Rights Watch. "We strongly urge them to make the right choice and to advance basic rights for women."
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Zimbabwe’s evictions carried out with ‘indifference to human suffering,’ UN envoy says
July 22, 2005 - UN News Centre
A United Nations report released today calls on the Government of Zimbabwe to stop the demolition of homes and markets, pay reparations to those who have lost housing and livelihoods and punish those who, “with indifference to human suffering,” carried out the evictions of some 700,000 people.
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Indigenous Hawaiians on Brink of Partial Sovereignty
July 19, 2005 - Brendan Coyne, The New Standard
Legislation under consideration in both chambers of Congress would grant native Hawaiians the same legal status as Native Americans and Native Alaskans, creating a separate governing body for around 400,000 United States citizens.
Sponsored by two Hawaiian Democrats, Neil Abercrombie in the House of Representatives and Daniel Akaka in the Senate, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005 provides for the "native Hawaiian people to exercise their inherent rights as a distinct, indigenous, native community to reorganize a Native Hawaiian governing entity for the purpose of giving expression to their rights as native people to self-determination and self-governance."
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Prosecutors ask to reopen case against Milosevic
July 20, 2005 - Emma Thomasson, Reuters AlertNet
U.N. prosecutors have applied to reopen their case against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to present new evidence including a shocking video of the murder of six Muslims, the Hague tribunal said on Wednesday.
Prosecutors wrapped up their case in February 2004 after calling about 290 witnesses over two years. Milosevic launched his defence last August but his poor health has repeatedly delayed the trial, now expected to last well into 2006.
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At the U.N., a Growing Republican Presence
July 21, 2005 - Colum Lynch, Washington Post
Christopher B. Burnham, the highest-ranking U.S. citizen working in the U.N. Secretariat, is a rare breed here: a Republican Party loyalist and an enthusiastic supporter of President Bush.
Burnham, the United Nations' undersecretary for the department of management, is one of a handful of Bush administration supporters hired by the United Nations in recent months. They have been promoting Bush's political agenda in an organization that has clashed bitterly with Republican policymakers over such issues as the impact of global warming and the justification for the war in Iraq.
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UN Agencies Collaborate on Amazon Conservation Efforts
July 25, 2005 - Kristen Kelley, Cultural Survival
The U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) are collaborating on a $1.5 million project to help indigenous peoples address environmental damage in the Amazon Basin.
The organizations announced the two-year project at the end of June following the Third Biennial International Waters Conference in Salvador Bahia, Brazil.
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UNITED STATES: Federal Appeals Court reopens "Redskins" lawsuit
July 25, 2005 - Cultural Survival, Indian Country Today
On July 15, the Washington D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of reopening a 1992 suit brought by Native American activists against the professional football team, the Washington Redskins. The plaintiffs are seeking the cancellation of all of the Redskins trademarks due to their offensive nature. In 2003, a lower court judge found in favor of the Redskins' owners, Pro Football Inc., claiming the defendants had taken too long to file their claim.
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NIGERIA: Extra-judicial killing of 6 Igbo traders
July 6, 2005 - allAfrica.com
Six Igbo traders were murdered by Nigerian police at Apo Mechanic Village in Abuja in early June, AllAfrica.com reports. Police claimed that the traders were armed robbers, but an investigation revealed that the handmade pistols found on the victims were planted by the police who shot them. Since then, a policeman, Anthony Idahi, has also been killed on suspicion that he leaked information about the murders.
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Mau Forest Residents Decry Violent Evictions
July 15, 2005 - Michael Tiampati, Cultural Survival
Sanctioned by the Kenyan cabinet, police forcibly evicted an estimated 2,750 families, about 10,000 people, and burned homes in the Narok District of the Mau Forest complex. The eviction destroyed seven primary schools, affecting 2,721 students.
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Indigenous Youth Challenge Corporate Mining
July 15, 2005 - Angela Sterritt, Cultural Survival
On June 22 the second International Indigenous Youth Conference (IIYC) released several resolutions and declarations aiming to stop the destructive impacts of globalization on indigenous lands, cultures, and peoples.
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CAMBODIA: UN representative defends indigenous land rights
July 15, 2005 - UN News Centre
A U.N. official asked the Cambodian government on July 5 to cancel a land concession that was granted to a Chinese forestry company on lands belonging to the Phenong. "The government and the company have disregarded the well-being, culture and livelihoods of the Phnong indigenous people who make up more than half the population of the province, and many breaches of the law and of human rights have been committed," Peter Leuprecht, U.N. Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia, told the U.N. News Center.
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The Missing Third Leg of UN Accountability
June 23, 2005 - Michael Kagan, Forign Policy in Focus
As the debate over reforming the United Nations rages, reformers talk about accountability when they’re worried about money. But no one is talking about how to make UN agencies accountable to the actual people they are supposed to serve. That’s why the moment has come for human rights advocates to join the campaign for UN reform.
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Why turn a blind eye to tyranny?
July 4, 2005 - Chris Albin-Lackey, International Herald Tribune
When people around the world came together on Saturday for the Live 8 concerts, they were hoping to recapture the magic of "the day that rock 'n' roll changed the world" at Live Aid in 1985. Twenty years later, Ethiopia has again emerged as a potent symbol - not only of the cause behind the concert, but also of the consequences of oversimplifying the debate on aid to Africa.
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Slavery Slips Through Cracks in U.S. Policy
July 13, 2005 - Michelle Chen, The New Standard
Nearly sixty years after the international community
declared it a crime against humanity, slavery today is
far from banished. Involuntary servitude persists in
developed and underdeveloped regions, and the
United States remains one of the major destinations
for traffickers and their captives. But according to
activists and researchers, despite recent progress in
anti-trafficking policies and enforcement, what many
consider the basest form of human exploitation
continues to thrive in the US.
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Reporters Without Borders and the OSCE make six recommendations to ensure freedom of expression on the Internet
June 20, 2005 - Reporters without Borders
This declaration by Reporters Without Borders and
the representative of the OSCE (Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe) on Freedom of
the Media aims to deal with the main issues facing
countries seeking to regulate online activity. Should
the Web be filtered? Can online publications be
forced to register with the authorities? What should
the responsibility of service providers (ISPs) be?
How far does a national jurisdiction extend?
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MOZAMBIQUE: Civic groups welcome debt relief but want more aid and trade
June 14, 2005 - IRIN
Civil society
groups in Mozambique say the savings resulting from
debt relief should be channelled into developing the
country's agricultural sector. Mozambique is among
the 18 countries eligible for a total writeoff of foreign
debt after an agreement was reached by the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries in London at the
weekend.
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Egypt: Civil Society Groups Severely Restricted
July 1, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Civil society groups in Egypt face severe restrictions under the law governing nongovernmental organizations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In addition, the country’s security services scrutinize and harass civil society activists even though the law does not accord them any such powers.
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Unleash Civil Society in China To Save Lives
June 21, 2005 - Sara (Meg) Davis, Human Rights Watch
AIDS still poses a fundamental challenge to China's top-down, hierarchical system, even if Chinese officials deserve praise for finally beginning to confront the epidemic with a raft of new public statements and policies. In order to fight HIV/AIDS, Beijing must give up its stranglehold on civil society, and let a hundred organizations bloom.
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COLOMBIA: UNHCR investigates indigenous disappearances
July 1, 2005 - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed grave concern regarding the safety of indigenous Awa group residing on the Colombia-Ecuador border on Friday, July 1. Throughout this week, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances will visit Colombian cities to discuss various cases surrounding the disappearances that mostly pertain to indigenous residents of the Narino Province.
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UNITED STATES: NCAA committee continues review of Indian mascots
July 1, 2005
Last week, the NCAA’s Minority Interests and Opportunities Committee met in Boston to begin assessing reviews submitted by 30 Division I, II and III schools whose Indian mascots are under investigation. Most of the schools in question maintain that their mascots and nicknames are institutional traditions dating back decades. American Indian activists, as well as other civil rights groups, call the mascots discriminatory and derogatory because the dances, figures and songs used by the schools in question severely disrespect and mar American Indian religious and cultural tradition. After last week's meeting the committee has voted against declaring a mascot ban—they are, however, making "confidential" recommendations to the schools in question. The NCAA Executive Committee will have the final word. A permanent decision is expected in August.
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IRAN: UNPO addresses the human rights of Ahwazi Arabs
June 27, 2005 - Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation
The Underrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) General Assembly in The Hague, Netherlands has called for international support for indigenous Ahwazi Arabs of Iran who have been facing increased persecution and subjugation in recent months. In April, the Iranian government responded to unarmed Ahwazi Arabs demonstrating for their linguistic and cultural rights with an armed force that resulted in 160 deaths, over 800 injuries, and thousands of arrests.
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ARGENTINA: Government intervenes in land auction
June 27, 2005 - Marcela Valente, Inter Press News Agency
On June 27, the government of Argentina filed an appeal to temporarily halt the auction of 10,000 hectares of land in the country’s northwestern province of Santiago del Estero, home to roughly 4,000 people, most of whom are indigenous. A court ordered the auction after Banco Platense, a bank that had listed the land as collateral on a loan, went bankrupt.
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U.S. Military Base Raises Ire Among Indigenous Peoples, Environmentalists
July 8, 2005 - Katrina Randall, Cultural Survival
The construction of a U.S. military base off the northeast coast of Henoko Bay in the Okinawa prefecture is limiting the self-determination of the Okinawan people and endangering the dugong, their cultural icon.
In 1996, the United States reached an agreement with Japan in the Special Actions Committee on Okinawa (SACO), to move the Futenma Marine Corp Air Base, currently stationed in the central district of Ginowan in Okinawa prefecture, to the northeastern coast of Nago, Okinawa in Henoko village.
The move was supposed to alleviate the burden of U.S. military presence in Okinawa, but ultimately, it sparked a battle that has been waging for years.
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Latest Zapatista Communiqué Redefines Mission
July 8, 2005 - Lindsey Wahlstrom, Cultural Survival
The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), an indigenous movement based in Chiapas, Mexico, released a new mission statement on July 1, resolving to increase the group's political activity to fight for the rights of the nation's poor and indigenous peoples.
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UNITED STATES: ACLU and Rosebud Sioux Tribe file suit against school district, alleging discrimination
July 1, 2005 - Jomay Steen, Rapid City Journal
On June 23, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in cooperation with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, filed a complaint with the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights alleging that South Dakota's Winner School District (WSD) discriminates against Native American students. The ACLU contends that schools nationwide funnel Native students into a "school to prison" pipeline, and that the worst offenses occur throughout South Dakota. An ACLU investigation concluded that Indian students at WSD are disproportionately punished and the school district metes out far harsher punishments than the students' Caucasian peers receive.
The ACLU reports that during the 2002-2003 school year, American Indian children made up only 14 percent of the WSD high school student body but accounted for 85 percent of in-school suspensions and more than half of out of school suspensions. Moreover, the ACLU also reports that during that year, an overwhelming majority of the Native American student body were suspended at least once. The ACLU hopes that this complaint will help discourage other schools from discriminatory activities.
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AUSTRALIA: ATSIC officially dissolved
July 1, 2005 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Online
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) regional councils formally dissolved today, July 1. Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Amanda Vanstone, told ABC News that new bodies will be established to act as an interface between indigenous communities and government. So far, new arrangements for ten of the 35 regions covered by ATSIC regional council are in the works, she said.
However, other ABC reports account disappointment and doubt. Kimberley Hunter, chairman of the former Yilli Rreung Regional Council, said that he doubts new bodies will give indigenous people a direct say in policy.
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First Nations Demand Change to Indian Act
July 1, 2005 - Allison Thresher, Cultural Survival
Twenty years after Canada’s Indian Act was amended, aboriginal peoples continue to push for the law to be rewritten.
On June 28, about 100 people gathered at the Human Rights Monument in Ottawa to protest the 1985 amendment, added through bill C-31. The legislation changed the criteria for aboriginals to claim Indian status, as well as the amount of control bands have in determining membership.
Status determines who is recognized as an "Indian" by the Canadian government. Without status, a person is not eligible for benefits and legislation applying to recognized First Nations people. These benefits include the right to live on reserve and share in band activities.
According to the protesters, the discriminatory C-31 amendments must be rewritten in order to bring the Indian Act in line with the U.N. Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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First NAFTA, Now CAFTA?
July 13, 2005 - Stephanie White, E-magazine.com
In 1993, the U.S. government passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, promising it would promote jobs. In reality, according to Sarah Massey, a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO Americas Union Movement, it lowered wages, heightened unemployment and increased pollution. Massey now argues that the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is “going to be a failure just like NAFTA.” She adds, “It also isn’t going to change the substandard working conditions, child labor laws or environmental regulations of Central America. This agreement will only help large corporations, not the people.”
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United Nations Children's Committee Warns About FTA Threats to Access to Affordable Medicines and Social Services for the Poor
June 15, 2005 - 3D -> Trade - Human Rights - Equitable Economy
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in recommendations made public this week warned that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) may negatively affect access to affordable medicines and social services for the poor.
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A new paradigm for the fight against terror
April 7, 2005 - Fernando Henrique Cardoso, International Herald Tribune
One of the most surprising political developments since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been the extent to which the fight against terrorism has divided the democratic world. A seemingly unbridgeable gulf emerged between those who wanted to counter terrorism primarily by "taking the battle to the enemy" and those who tended to minimize the threat. Most of us did not feel comfortable with either position, yet most policymakers, intellectuals and civic leaders couldn't offer anything coherent or articulate of their own. Since the Madrid summit meeting last month on democracy, terrorism and security, this is no longer true.
USCRI Releases World Refugee Survey 2005
June 15, 2005
The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) releases World Refugee Survey 2005-Warehousing, Inventory of Refugee Rights at the UN Correspondents Association today, offering a comprehensive critique of refugee rights abuses around the world. Nearly 8 million refugees continue to be denied the basic right to work and move freely. For the first time, the survey grades countries' performances and highlights both the good and bad behavior of refugee hosting and donor countries with regard to honoring refugee rights.
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Child jockeys relive Gulf ordeal
June 29, 2005 - Shahrezad Samiuddin, BBC News, Lahore
Twenty-two child camel jockeys who returned from the United Arab Emirates last week are undergoing psychotherapy to help them deal with their traumatic experiences in the Gulf.
Officials at the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau - a shelter for children run by the Punjab government - say that disorientation seems to be the "most immediate" of the jockeys' problems.
State Must Act To Ensure People's Property Rights
June 29, 2005 - Op-Ed, The Enterprise
There's nothing unusual about the often sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court handing down a 5-4 decision, but when the justices align as they did last week in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, court watchers take special notice.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy, voting in the majority, ruled that local government can seize an individual's home for private economic development projects.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a blistering dissent in which she accused the majority of siding with the rich and powerful at the expense of middle-class Americans.
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USA: UN scrutiny essential in preventing torture and ill-treatment
June 24, 2005 - Press Release, Amnesty International
Amnesty International stressed the need for the USA to open up its detention centres all over the world to independent UN experts, after they expressed "deep regret" at the USA's failure to facilitate a visit to its 'war on terror' detainees. The organization pointed out the importance of independent monitoring in preventing torture and ill-treatment.
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Coke Loses Rutgers Contract to Pepsi
May 13, 2005 - Scott Leith, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rutgers, one of the largest universities in the country, is shifting its beverage business from Coca-Cola to Pepsi.
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China To Outlaw Sexual Harassment
June 27, 2005 - BBC News World Edition
Sexual harassment is soon to become a crime in China under new gender equality laws, state media have said.
Changes to laws protecting women's rights which will outlaw harassment have been submitted to lawmakers, according to news agency Xinhua.
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UN Experts 'deeply regret' US Failure to Allow Guantanamo Visit on Torture Report
June 23, 2005 - UN News Centre
Senior United Nations human rights experts today deeply regretted the United States Government's failure so far to allow them to visit detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan or Guantanamo Bay naval base following information "from reliable sources" of serious allegations of torture.
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Prohibition of Torture Is Absolute, Non-Negotiable, Secretary-General Says in Message for International Day
June 24, 2005 - Kofi Annan, United Nations Press Release
The International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is an occasion to reaffirm our commitment to eradicate torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, in whatever guise or manifestation they occur. It is an occasion to pause and remember torture victims who have not survived, to listen to the stories of those who have, and to support their quest for justice for torture victims and their families -- including by supporting the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture.
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"I'm Ready to Stand in Front of the Gun and be Shot"
June 24, 2005 - Moyiga Nduru, Inter Press Service News Agency
A coalition of more than 200 African and international civic groups has called on the United Nations and African Union to press for an end to evictions and demolitions that have left people across Zimbabwe homeless.
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Rules On Corporate Ethics Could Help, Not Hinder, Multinationals
June 21, 2005 - Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch
Most multinational companies automatically oppose
calls for enforceable standards of corporate social
responsibility. Under growing public scrutiny of their
behaviour, many western companies have adopted
voluntary codes of business conduct. But for most,
the notion of enforceable standards remains
anathema. Recently, however, some western
companies have privately questioned this posture.
They have begun to recognise it might be in their
interest to operate under enforceable standards that
apply to all their competitors, rather than under
voluntary ones that, for all practical purposes, apply
only to prominent companies.
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Landmark Judgment in Environmental Pollution Case
June 9, 2005 - European Human Rights Advocacy Centre
In an unprecedented judgment today the European Court of Human Rights has found that the failure of the Russian state to effectively prevent or regulate pollution from a steel plant has violated the European Convention on Human Rights. The case was brought by a Russian woman, Mrs Nadezhda Fadeyeva, who claimed the right to be re-housed because of the pollution coming from a privately-operated steel works near her home. The applicant was represented by lawyers from the London-based European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC) together with lawyers at the Russian human rights organisation Memorial.
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United Nations Children's Committee Warns About FTA Threats to Access to Affordable Medicines and Social Services for the Poor
June 15, 2005 - 3D -> Trade - Human Rights - Equitable Economy
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in recommendations made public this week warned that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) may negatively affect access to affordable medicines and social services for the poor.
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Developing Countries Pledge To Empower Women, Protect Them From Poverty, Disease
May 11, 2005 - Henry J. Kaiser Family
Government ministers and representatives from 84 wealthy and developing Asian, African and Latin American countries at the Non-Aligned Movement Ministerial Meeting on the Advancement of Women in
Putrajaya, Malaysia on 10 May, pledged to "rescue
women" from poverty, disease and war, as well as
ensure "greater political voice" for women. A 50-point declaration outlines specific concerns in nine areas
for women, including health, education, poverty and
economic development, power and decision-making, media and communication technology, armed conflict, violence, disaster situations and gender mainstreaming.
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US 'erodes' global human rights
January 13, 2005 - BBC World News
Violations of human rights by the US are undermining international law and eroding its role on the world stage, a leading campaign group says.
Human Rights Watch says the US can no longer claim to defend human rights abroad if it practises abuses itself.
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Human Rights is Best Strategy to End Poverty
January 25, 2005 - Mary Robinson, IPS Columnist Service
Will 2005 be a year of breakthrough which moves us closer to realising the World Social Forum's conviction that another world is possible? Or will it be yet another year in which the divides in our world continue to grow? The answer, of course, depends on the choices we make and the values we uphold, writes Mary Robinson, executive director of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative and honorary president of Oxfam International.
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Statement by Ms. Louise Arbour High Commissioner for Human Rights
January 14, 2005 - Louise Arbour, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
In her address, Louise Arbour, High Commissioner of Human Rights, highlighted the equality of all human rights – “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflects the principle of the equal status of all human rights. Although we have a tendency to make distinctions among fundamental human rights in terms of abstract 'categories' such as 'civil and political' and 'economic, social and cultural,' or 'first generation,' 'second generation,' etc., this approach lacks intellectual rigour. Such categorizations overshadow what is common to all human rights, and overemphasize irrelevant differences”. She added that ‘recognising the status of economic, social and cultural rights as justiciable entitlements is crucial to honouring the political, moral and legal commitments undertaken by States when the international bill of rights was adopted’.
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Human rights not hollow words - An appeal to President George W. Bush on the occasion of his re-inauguration
January 19, 2005 - Amnesty International
Mr President,
In your inaugural address four years ago, you promised to be a leader who would "speak for greater justice". Since then, a much repeated promise of your administration has been that the USA will adhere to fundamental principles of human dignity and the rule of law, including in the context of the "war on terror".....Of course, a government should not be assessed on its words alone, but also on its actions. For things may not be as officially described.
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Joint NGO statement to OHCHR calls for stronger UN machinery for human rights
January 27, 2005 - United Nations
A joint written NGO statement calling for the effective functioning of human
rights mechanisms and the adaptation and strengthening of the UN's machinery
for human rights has been submitted to the Office of United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights for discussion at its sixty-first session in Geneva from 14 March to 22 April 2005. The statement was submitted by
Friends World Committee for Consultation (Quakers), Franciscans
International, Amnesty International, the Association for the Prevention of
Torture, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Federation of ACAT, the International Federation of Human
Rights Leagues and the International Service for Human Rights.
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Annan seeks thorough UN overhaul
March 21, 2005 - BBC News World Edition
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged governments to endorse sweeping reforms of the organisation.
They include enlarging the Security Council, setting out rules on when it can authorise military force, and an agreed definition of terrorism. The proposals are contained in a report aimed at ensuring that the United Nations remains at the heart of the world's security system.
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A More Secure World: The Future Role of the United Nations
February 14, 2005 - Kofi Annan, United Nations
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the forty-first Munich Conference on Security Policy in Munich on February 13, noting that "in strengthening the security of others, we protect the security of our own."
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China: US Silent on Human Rights Record
March 22, 2005 - IFEX
Human Rights Watch has criticised the United States and the international community for deciding not to introduce a resolution at the UN Commission on Human Rights condemning China for its poor human rights record.
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The Absence of Democracy at the World Bank
March 29, 2005 - Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS
For an organisation that claims to promote good governance, the current appointment process for the World Bank President is one that lacks the very basic notions of democratic practice. This is grossly unfair, unjust, and inappropriate and undermines any claim the World Bank could make about democracy, good governance or anti- corruption.
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Sudan: Human Rights Concerns for the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
March 17, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch calls on the Commission on Human Rights to re-establish the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on human rights for Sudan, and condemn gross abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law by the government of Sudan, its allied Janjaweed and other militia, and rebel groups in Darfur.
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Egyptian state 'stifles' students
June 9, 2005 - BBC News
Egypt's academic life is being stifled by intimidation and censorship imposed by the state, Human Rights Watch says.
The repressive atmosphere has led to self-censorship in the country's universities, the US-based group adds.
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Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights Set to Monitor Situation in Nepal
April 11, 2005 - United Nations
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is to set up a monitoring operation in Nepal in a move to help establish accountability for human rights abuses and prevent further violations.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and Ramesh Nath Pandey, Minister for Foreign Affairs on behalf of His Majesty's Government of Nepal, signed the agreement establishing the operation today. The agreement is to be implemented immediately and planning is already well-advanced to ensure the early start-up of operations and deployment of human rights officers for the monitoring.
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Back Annan's call for a new human rights body
April 9, 2005 - Loubna Freih and Joanna Weschler, International Herald Tribune
On Thursday, the secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, did what was once unthinkable: He told the UN Commission on Human Rights that the best way to improve the organization was simply to throw it away and start from scratch.
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Darfur: Arrest War Criminals, Not Aid Workers
May 31, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Donor governments and the United Nations must condemn the Sudanese government's arbitrary arrest and intimidation of aid workers, Human Rights Watch said today. The Sudanese government should
drop charges against all aid workers, including the head of Médecins Sans
Frontières in Khartoum, Paul Foreman, who was arrested yesterday and
released on bail.
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Without reform of human rights body, UN credibility at stake, Annan says
April 7, 2005 - UN News Centre
Speaking on the eleventh anniversary of the start of the Rwanda genocide and addressing the very human rights body he wants to replace, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today warned Member States that without reform of the United Nations human rights machinery, the credibility of the world body itself is at stake.
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Veteran human rights advocate named to lead UN monitoring group in Nepal
April 29, 2005 - UN News Centre
Ian Martin, a veteran of United Nations human rights operations, has been named to head a team of UN monitors being deployed to Nepal in the coming weeks to try to establish accountability and prevent further abuses.
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UN human rights office calls for future strengthened and expanded role
May 27, 2005 - UN News Centre
With human rights observance being
one of the central goals of the United Nations,
Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour today
outlined a strategic vision for the future and called
for tools to increase her office's global leadership and
its engagement with individual countries.
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Mongolia adopts parliament resolution on MDGs
August 21, 2005 - Civicus
The Mongolian Parliament has endorsed a historic resolution on MDGs and set a new Mongolia specific MDG 9 on "Fostering Democratic Governance and Strengthening Human Rights" with three country specific indicators: to respect and abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ensure
freedom of media and access to information and create an environment of zero-tolerance for corruption.
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Sudan sets up war crimes tribunal
June 14, 2005 - BBC News
Sudan has set up a special court to try those accused of war crimes in the Darfur region. Justice Minister Ali Mohammed Yassin said the court would be an alternative to the world court which has started to investigate alleged atrocities.
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Senate apologizes for inaction on lynchings
June 13, 2005 - MSNBC News Services
The Senate late Monday formally apologized for having rejected decades of pleas to make lynching a federal crime as scores victims’ descendants watched from the chamber’s gallery.
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On a voice vote and without opposition, the Senate passed a resolution expressing its regrets to the relatives as well as to the nearly 5,000 Americans who were documented as having been lynched from 1880 to 1960.
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The African Union should denounce serious human rights violations
June 13, 2005 - The International Federation for Human Rights
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its affiliate in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (Zimrights) condemn strongly the large-scale forced evictions and repression under “Operation Restore Order”, conducted by Zimbabwean government, under the pretext of “cleaning up the country”, for the past three weeks.
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Mugabe's human rubbish dump
June 6, 2005 - Xan Rice, Times Online
On the President’s orders, 200,000 people have been forced out of illegal townshipsWHEN President Mugabe’s Government announced plans to “clean up” the country’s cities more than two weeks ago, many Zimbabweans wondered what the innocent-sounding phrase really meant. Now they know. Thousands of street stalls demolished. More than 23,000 informal workers arrested. Entire neighbourhoods burnt to the ground or razed by bulldozers. Hundreds of thousands of poor people left homeless in the middle of winter.
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Colombia : Unions appeal to Europe and ILO
May 25, 2005 - ICFTU OnLine
In the run-up to the International Labour Conference and the trade negotiations between Europe and Andean countries, Colombian unions denounce anti-union repression and worsening work conditions. Colombian unions of all political persuasions are firmly relying on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to send their government a clear message when the International Labour Conference opens on May 31 in Geneva.
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Un-Housing the Poor
June 6, 2005 - Dan Frosch, AlterNet
In December 1998, Tarrah Leach's life finally hit rock bottom. She was barely 17 years old, already a mother of two small infant daughters, and hiding out in a domestic shelter. She'd been married only a year, a difficult year that the teenage couple spent first in a homeless shelter and then in a small public housing apartment in Lancaster, Ohio, a town some 32 miles southeast of Columbus. And though Leach still loved her childhood sweetheart, she could no longer tolerate his abuse and beatings. So she took her kids and walked out the door without a dollar to her name.
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Biden: U.S. Needs To Shut Down Gitmo
June 5, 2005 - Associated Press
A leading Senate Democrat said Sunday the United States needs to move toward shutting down the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “This has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world. And it is unnecessary to be in that position,” said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.
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Top UN officials welcome approval of human rights office in Guatemala
June 2, 2005 - UN News Centre
With boosting country-level human rights work a major part of the United Nations strategic vision, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and UN human rights chief Louise Arbour today welcomed the Guatemala’s endorsement of an agreement to open a new UN rights field office in the Central American country.
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Cambodia Shields Americans from International Court Prosecution
May 19, 2005 - Ker Munthit, The Irrawaddy
Cambodia's legislature on Wednesday ratified a pact with the United States exempting each country's citizens from extradition for prosecution by the International Criminal Court, an agreement sought by Washington to avoid political trials of its citizens.
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Young Russians face health crisis
June 1, 2005 - Stephen Eke, BBC news
Russian children and teenagers are less healthy today than at any stage since World War II, the country's interior minister has said. Homelessness, drugs, alcoholism and illiteracy among young Russians, threaten future development, Rashid Nurgaliyev told a Moscow conference.
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A bad plan in Colombia
May 16, 2005 - José Miguel Vivanco and Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, International Herald Tribune
After pouring $3 billion into Plan Colombia, the United States is about to be betrayed by one of its closest allies in the fight against drugs and terror. The Colombian government is putting the final touches on a scheme to launder the criminal records of top paramilitary commanders - including some of the country's most powerful drug lords - while allowing them to keep their wealth and maintain their control over much of the country. Should the plan be approved, it will be an enormous setback for U.S. counternarcotics and counterterror efforts, as well as for human rights in Colombia.
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'Urgent' visit to Uzbekistan requested by UN expert on arbitrary executions
May 20, 2005 - UN News Centre
The United Nations expert on summary or arbitrary executions today requested an invitation from the Government of Uzbekistan for an “urgent” visit following reports that hundreds of people were killed in the eastern city of Andijan last weekend when Government troops opened fire on a protest march.
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Zimbabwe: Human rights defenders under siege
May 21, 2005 - Amnesty International
Amnesty International is deeply concerned by the repression of human rights defenders in Zimbabwe. The government, in an effort to conceal human rights violations and prevent public protest and criticism of its actions, has become increasingly intolerant of the work of human rights defenders and is actively seeking to silence them.
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U.S.: Restrictive Policies Undermine Anti-AIDS Efforts
May 31, 2005
Mandatory 'Anti-Prostitution Pledge' Threatens Lives of Sex Workers and Trafficking Victims
The U.S. government is trying to
withhold anti-HIV/AIDS funding unless both U.S.-based and foreign organizations adopt policies that
explicitly oppose all forms of prostitution, Human Rights Watch and a group of more than 200 leading public and human rights experts and organizations said today in a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush.
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The Paiute Mining Disaster
May 31, 2005 - Bob Boyce, E-magazine.com
The Yerington Anaconda Mine in northern Nevada was one of the world's largest producers of copper from 1953 to 2000. Today, nearby residents complain the defunct site is a major polluter. The Yerington Paiute Tribe's (YPT) Campbell Ranch Reservation is barely three miles north, downwind from the 3,500-acre mining property and squarely in the path of any contaminants that might leave the mine.
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A Genuine Inquiry into Abuses
May 21, 2005 - Saman Zia-Zarifi and John Sifton, International Herald Tribune
How did a short item in Newsweek reporting that U.S. interrogators had desecrated a Koran at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, spark massive riots in several Muslim countries last week, leading to the deaths of least 16 people? And who, exactly, should bear the blame for these tragic events?
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IFEX Members Urge African Union to Protect Free Expression
May 20, 2005 - IFEX Communiqué, International Freedom of Expression eXchange
Leading press freedom organisations, including IFEX members, have urged the African Union (AU) to adopt a continent-wide treaty to enshrine the right to freedom of expression, saying the intergovernmental body needs to formally recognise the role of the media in promoting good governance.
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While dirty money flows, the poor stay poor
April 13, 2005 - Jennifer Nordin and Raymond Baker, International Herald Tribune
The United Nations Millennium Project's recent report, "Investing in Development," calls for more than doubling foreign aid from rich to poor countries over the next 10 years. These are certainly worthy goals, but what about the billions of dollars that stream illegally the other way, from poor countries to rich?
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Britain slams rights abuse in Uzbekistan, Turkey and OSCE urge restraint in
May 15, 2005 - AFX News Limited, Forbes
Britain decried rights abuses Sunday after the military supressed an uprising in Uzbekistan that left at least 60 dead while Turkey and a pan-European security body called for restraint from both the government and demonstrators in the former Soviet republic.
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The Missing Patriot Debate
May 12, 2005 - David Cole, The Nation
The Patriot Act debate is on--sort of. Congress has until the end of the year to decide whether to reauthorize sixteen "sunsetted" provisions of the act that would otherwise expire on December 31. It is holding hearings, and even inviting civil liberties advocates to some of them. Six states and more than 370 cities and towns have adopted resolutions condemning the act's civil liberties abuses. Courts have declared some of its provisions unconstitutional. An impressive coalition of conservative and liberal groups, featuring the likes of former Republican Congressman Bob Barr and the ACLU's Anthony Romero, has vowed to restore checks and balances to a law passed in haste and fear just six weeks after 9/11. And one of the most powerful lobbies in the country is on the case--librarians.
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Beyond Darfur
May 15, 2005 - The Washington Post
This page has urged tougher pressure on Sudan's government, which promotes genocide in the western province of Darfur. But such pressure could also yield benefits elsewhere. Sudan's government has backed murderous militias in other parts of the country, and may be tempted to do so again in response to a regional rebellion brewing in the east. Sudan's rulers need to hear the message that sponsoring horrific death squads is not an acceptable practice, in Darfur or anywhere.
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Nepal: Rights must be restored along with the lifting of the State of Emergency
May 3, 2005 - Amnesty International
Following the lifting of the State of Emergency in Nepal by King Gyanendra, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) call for the restoration of all fundamental rights formally suspended under the State of Emergency.
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Karimov courted by Britain and US despite human rights record
May 15, 2005 - Andrew Johnson, The Independent
Uzbekistan's human right's record may be internationally criticised, but this has not stopped the country enjoying the best relations with London, Washington and Moscow. The highlight in President Islam Karimov's scrap book is no doubt a 45-minute head-to-head meeting with President George Bush in the Oval Office in March 2002. Uzbekistan was one of the first countries to offer strategic assistance to the US after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The US used its airbases for operations over Afghanistan.
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Indigenous leaders, activists plan anti-poverty strategies at UN forum
May 13, 2005 - UN News Centre
Some 1,500 indigenous leaders and their supporters will hold a meeting at the United Nations starting next week to create strategies to meet the first two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and providing universal primary education.
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Growing privatization of property among reasons driving homelessness, UN rights expert says
May 11, 2005 - UN News Centre
The growing privatization of property and increased land speculation were among the driving forces behind the 1.6 billion inadequately housed people across the world, including an estimated 100 million who are completely homeless, a United Nations human rights monitor said today.
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Algeria calls on France to admit 1945 massacres
May 8, 2005 - Paul de Bendern, Reuters
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has called on France to admit its part in the massacres of 45,000 Algerians who took to the streets to demand independence as Europe celebrated victory over Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945.
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Repeating Clinton's Mistakes
May 3, 2005 - Tom Malinowski, Washington Post
In his willingness to confront evil head-on, President Bush likes to think he's more decisive than that mushy-headed multilateralist Bill Clinton. But when I look at the Bush administration's response to what it has itself called genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, I can't help thinking I've seen this movie before. It recalls the early Clinton administration (in which I served) and its initially ineffectual stand against genocide in Bosnia.
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U.S. Recruits a Rough Ally to Be a Jailer
May 1, 2005 - Don Van Natta, Jr., The New York Times
Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.
The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly, "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."
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A Big Win for Human Rights
April 21, 2005 - Daphne Eviatar, The Nation
Early in April, the California-based Unocal Corporation announced it was being bought out by its neighbor, the oil giant ChevronTexaco. Splashed across the business pages, the news overshadowed another announcement, made much more quietly two weeks earlier: that Unocal had agreed to pay to settle a long-running lawsuit charging the oil company with assisting and encouraging the torture, murder and rape of Burmese villagers by government soldiers so that Unocal could build a gas pipeline. The timing of these two announcements is no coincidence, and it underscores just how seriously these legal cases are now being taken in corporate boardrooms. Once considered mere nuisances, lawsuits implicating corporations in international human rights abuses have become major obstacles to corporate profitability and prospects.
No freedom for disabled
April 26, 2005 - SAPA
Members of the QuadPara Association of South Africa
would not celebrate freedom on Freedom Day
because government was not enforcing their equal
rights, they said on Tuesday. National director Ari
Seirlis said the disability sector made up at least 10
percent of the population of South Africa, and
enjoyed democracy, but not the freedom that
democracy entitled them to. "There is no accessible
public transport for persons with mobility
impairments, still no access to accessible sanitation,
water and housing," Seirlis said.
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Helping People With Disabilities Out of the Shadows
January 2, 2005 - Amartya Sen and James D. Wolfensohn, The Korea Times
Disabled people are not only the most deprived human beings in the developing world, they are also the most neglected. It is important to acknowledge that more than 600 million people in the world live with some form of disability. More than 400 million of them live in developing countries, often amidst poverty, isolation and despair. Not only are they, typically, the poorest of the poor, but they also need more money and help than able-bodied people to overcome their handicaps, and attempt to live normal lives.
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UN reports no security improvement in Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region
April 18, 2005 - UN News Centre
Clashes between the Government and rebels in Sudan's western Darfur region, attacks against international aid workers, rape and the persecution of its victims, abuse of children, and torture by security forces, underscored a continuing dire situation, according to the latest United Nations report on the region, which was released today.
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Protecting Human Rights While Countering Terrorism
April 23, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Statement to the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Agenda Item 17: Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights
Human Rights Watch supports the proposal now discussed by members of
this Commission to create a special rapporteur on the promotion and
protection of human rights while countering terrorism. Terrorism is the very antithesis of human rights, but human rights abuses committed in the name of counter-terrorism serve to fuel terrorism, not end it.
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Louise Arbour, justice sans frontières
April 22, 2005 - Afsané Bassir Pour, Le Monde
Louise Arbour veut médiatiser les droits de l'homme, en parler autrement, mais elle ne veut pas pour autant "sombrer dans le vedettariat". Vedette, le nouveau haut commissaire aux droits de l'homme des Nations unies l'est déjà, à sa manière, depuis 1996, année où elle est devenue procureur du Tribunal pénal international pour l'ex-Yougoslavie (TPIY). C'est elle, la petite juge canadienne, qui le 27 mai 1999 a inculpé de crimes contre l'humanité et crimes de guerre l'ancien président serbe Slobodan Milosevic.
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Uzbekistan: Government takes democracy NGO to court
April 6, 2005 - IRIN
Uzbek authorities have started criminal proceedings against the Tashkent office of Internews - an international media support NGO - the prosecutor general's office said on Tuesday. The announcement came as government stepped up scrutiny of foreign and local NGOs promoting democracy in the country in the wake of the fall of the government in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.
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Sudan: Donors Must Boost Protection Force in Darfur
April 6, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
At the international donors conference on Sudan that opens Monday in Oslo, donor governments must fund urgent protection measures for civilians in Darfur's ongoing conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. At the same time, donors should make human rights protections and the rule of law central to aid for reconstruction after the country's 21-year civil war in the south, Human Rights Watch said.
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UN rights commission adopts resolutions on cultural rights, racism
April 26, 2005 - UN News Centre
With one week left in its sixty-first session, the United Nations top human rights body has approved a host of resolutions aimed at promoting and protecting economic, social and cultural rights, and denouncing all forms of racism.
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Heroes & Icons: The Pluck of the Irish
April 26, 2005 - J.F.O. McAllister, Time Magazine
She has a judge's rectitude, a campaigner's zeal, the warmth of an old friend—and an acute sense of how to focus the global spotlight on a cause. Mary Robinson started out as a human-rights lawyer in Ireland, fighting for changes that were controversial yet, once in place, seemed obvious, like women on juries and legal contraception.
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A Radical in the White House
April 21, 2005 - Bob Herbert, New York Times
Last week - April 12, to be exact - was the 60th anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "I have a terrific headache," he said, before collapsing at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Ga. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the 83rd day of his fourth term as president. His hold on the nation was such that most Americans, stunned by the announcement of his death that spring afternoon, reacted as though they had lost a close relative.
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Microsoft Comes Under Fire for Reversal on Gay Rights Bill
April 22, 2005 - Sarah Kershaw, New York Times
The Microsoft Corporation, at the forefront of corporate gay rights for decades, is coming under fire from gay rights groups, politicians and its own employees for withdrawing its support for a state bill that would have barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
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Ordeal for Iraqi Journalists Continues With Reports of Five New Killings
April 18, 2005 - International Federation of Journalists
The ordeal of journalists caught in the Iraq conflict has intensified over the last four days with reports of five killings of journalists says the International Federation of Journalists. The IFJ says that safety and security for media staff and civil society must be a “top priority” for the new government.
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White House Dilutes EPA Cancer Risk Rules
April 11, 2005 - Roddy Scheer, E/The Environmental Magazine
Environmentalists were aghast last week upon discovering that the Bush administration's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had weakened otherwise stringent new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines on assessing the cancer risk of various chemicals.
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Nepal: Human Rights Concerns for the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
March 10, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
The Commission should call on the Government of Nepal to immediately restore all fundamental human rights, to ensure protection of human rights defenders, journalists and political activists and to release or charge all political detainees.
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A Side Order of Human Rights
April 6, 2005 - Eric Schlosser, New York Times
AND now a word of good news from the world of fast food.
Last month, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group that represents farm workers in southern Florida, announced that it was ending a four-year boycott of Taco Bell. The most remarkable thing about the announcement was the reason behind it: Taco Bell had acceded to all of the coalition's demands. At a time of declining union membership, failed organizing drives and public apathy about poverty, a group of immigrant tomato pickers had persuaded an enormous fast food company - Yum Brands, which in addition to Taco Bell owns KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W All American Food Restaurants and Long John Silver's - to increase the wages of migrant workers and impose a tough code of conduct on Florida.
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UN Environmental Assessment Predicts Gloom and Doom
April 6, 2005 - Roddy Sheer, E-magazine.com
Last week, the United Nations released a report predicting dire consequences over the next 50 years from the damage done to the world’s natural environment by humankind. According to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment study “shows how human activities are causing environmental damage on a massive scale throughout the world, and how biodiversity—the very basis for life on Earth—is declining at an alarming rate.”
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Relief as Turkish penal code put back
April 6, 2005 - Jonathan Gorvett, Aljazeera
In a last minute decision, Turkey's parliament has voted to postpone plans to introduce a new penal code which had been slammed by journalists and human rights activists. The new code had been due to come into force on 1 April - known as April Fool's Day in many countries, but for Turkey's journalists, a day that had taken on a much less comic connotation.
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Domestic Workers: Little Protection for the Underpaid
April 1, 2005 - Gloria Moreno-Fontes Chammartin, Migration Information Source
Domestic workers, the majority of whom are women, constitute a large portion of today's migrant worker population. In Latin America, for example, they constitute as many as 60 percent of all internal and international migration. The feminization of migration, a trend that began in the early 1980s, has resulted in an increased number of women who migrate alone.
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Security Council sends Darfur cases to International Criminal Court
April 1, 2005 - UN News Centre
The Security Council has decided to refer the situation in Sudan's troubled Darfur region – where a United Nations inquiry found “serious violations of international human rights law” – to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a move welcomed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan as one that would “ensure that those responsible for atrocities in Darfur are held to account.”
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Civil Society Calls for the Implementation of African Commission's Recommendations in Zimbabwe
March 18, 2005 - Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum has sent an open letter to President Robert Mugabe expressing its grave concern about the continuing abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe and to call on him to ensure that the recommendations made by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights are implemented in full.
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Real Progress in The Hague
March 29, 2005 - Bogdan Ivanisevic, Human Rights Watch
Lacking their own police forces, international tribunals depend on international cooperation to ensure that war-crime suspects are brought to justice. The recent wave of surrenders to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) shows that international pressure can induce cooperation in even the most recalcitrant states, provided that their diplomatic and economic interests are affected.
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Two-thirds of World's Resources 'used up'
March 30, 2005 - Tim Radford, science editor, The Guardian
The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.
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Kyrgyzstan’s “Tulip Revolution”
March 28, 2005 - Martha Brill Olcott, Carnegie Endowment for Peace
The ouster of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev shows that popular expectations in the Asian states of the former Soviet Union are not appreciably different from those in the European ones. For the third time in eighteen months seriously flawed elections have brought down the government in a CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) state, and for the first time this has occurred east of the Urals.
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Murder Linked to Marlin Mine Workers in Guatemala
March 24, 2005 - Kathryn Henderson, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
A Maya man was shot to death last week after a heated discussion with workers from a mine that has opened on his community’s land. Workers from the Glamis Gold Marlin mine are being held responsible for the March 12 death of Alvaro Sánchez, a Sipakapense villager from Pie de la Cuesta, Guatemala.
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GUATEMALA: Rigoberta Menchú Tum brings first racial lawsuit to court
March 24, 2005 - Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
On March 10 Rigoberta Menchú Tum, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, gave an emotional testimony in court recounting the racial harassment she experienced in Guatemala due to her indigenous heritage. The trial marks the first racial discrimination case heard in the Guatemalan court system. Menchú Tum has charged five members of the Guatemalan Republican Front with verbally attacking her on October 9, 2003, during a public hearing opposing the presidential candidacy of General Efrain Ríos Montt. Menchu Tum alleges Juan Carlos Ríos, Ana Cristina López Kestler, Elvia Domitila Morales de López, Vilma Orellana Ruano, and Enma Concepción Samayoa de Rosales racially insulted her with slurs such a “dirty Indian” and “shameless Indian.”
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Maori Woman Not Hired on Basis of Cultural Tattoo
March 24, 2005 - Chloë Waters, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
A Maori woman was rejected for a dishwashing job at the Brooklyne Tearooms in Sanson in February when the café owner claimed her moko kauae, a traditional Maori tattoo, would be bad for business.
According to the Manawatu Standard, Christina Bevan, a 35-year-old Rangitikei woman, first interviewed for the job over the phone, and was asked to come to the café for an interview. When the two met in person, the owner allegedly told Bevan that she would not be hired because of the moko kauae that covered her chin and lips.
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Senate Approves ANWR Drilling: So Now What?
March 22, 2005 - Roddy Scheer, E-magazine.com
Millions of Americans were shocked to find out last Wednesday that their Senators had approved oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by a vote of 51-49. Knowing they didn't have the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster, pro-drilling Senators tacked the drilling provision onto the filibuster-proof budget resolution proposal for 2006.
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Belgium: Law Protects Journalists' Sources
March 22, 2005 - IFEX
Belgium's Parliament has passed a law that protects the confidentiality of journalists' sources and bars authorities from monitoring their phones or searching their homes, reports the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
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Unocal settlement with Myanmar villagers finalised
March 22, 2005 - Dan Stormer, Agence France Presse
US oil giant Unocal and a group of villagers who accused it of condoning slave labour while building a key gas pipeline in Myanmar said they had finalised a settlement of the case.
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Federal Court: ATCA Can be Used Against Corps. Complicit in Abuse
March 16, 2005 - Earth Rights International
On March 10, 2005 a federal court in New York dismissed an action brought by Vietnamese villagers allegedly harmed by agent orange, a herbicide used by the U.S. government during the Vietnam War. The plaintiffs brought the suit against a number of U.S. companies that manufactured the herbicide. ERI, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law filed an amicus or "friend of the court" brief on behalf of the plaintiffs.
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UN: Annan Reforms Would Revamp UN Security, Rights Structures
March 21, 2005 - Robert McMahon, Radiio Free Europe
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has outlined a series of sweeping changes to improve the organization's ability to cope with security, development, and human rights challenges. Annan's reform plan proposes an expansion of the UN Security Council, a replacement of the maligned Human Rights Commission, and a stronger commitment by wealthy countries for development aid. His proposals would amount to the biggest shakeup in UN structures since its founding 60 years ago. They come at a time when the organization has been rocked by a series of scandals.
Marking World Water Day, UN to launch Water for Life Decade
March 21, 2005 - UN News Centre
To spur efforts by governments and civil society to meet agreed targets on halving the number of people lacking access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, the United Nations is launching the international Water for Life Decade tomorrow on World Water Day.
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With call for action, not more words, Annan outlines plan for radical UN reform
March 21, 2005 - UN News Centre
Calling for action, not more words, to fulfil pledges already made, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today laid before the General Assembly his plan for United Nations reform, ranging from greater investment in developing countries to steps to fight catastrophic terrorism and collective action against genocide and ethnic cleansing.
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UN refugee agency deeply concerned over recent actions by Italy, Switzerland
March 18, 2005 - UN News Centre
The United Nations refugee agency today voiced deep concern over actions by two European countries yesterday – Italy’s deportation of 180 people to Libya and Switzerland’s adoption of a new asylum law.
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Clearing the Smokescreen: Protecting Communities with Buckets of Air
March 1, 2005 - Rebecca Bowe, E/The Environmental Magazine
While hungover Crescent City visitors sip chicory coffee and nibble at beignets, an unlikely tour bus packed full of environmental justice activists heads through the city and into the heart of “cancer alley”—the riverside stretch of power plants, oil refineries and other industries that harms the health of so many New Orleans-area residents. They’ve gathered to talk about the Bucket Brigades, a community organizing effort that’s gone global, defending neighborhoods worldwide from industrial pollution. Tour guide Ken Ford has lived in a neighborhood adjacent to ExxonMobil’s Chalmette Oil Refinery for nearly 40 years. In that time he’s lost a great deal to cancer: neighbors, friends, even his own lung.
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ANC 'Satisfied' With Zimbabwe Poll Preparations
March 15, 2005 - Jacob Dlamini And Dumisani Muleya, AllAfrica.com
THE African National Congress (ANC) was satisfied with Zimbabwe's preparations for that country's parliamentary elections on March 31, party spokesman Smuts Ngonyama said yesterday as SA's parliamentary election observer mission to Zimbabwe arrived in Harare yesterday.
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'Freedom from Want' - from charity to entitlement
March 3, 2005 - Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
In the fall of 1999, I was greatly honoured to receive the Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt "Freedom from Fear" Award, in connection with my work as prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.
On that momentous occasion, I found myself envious of one of my co-honourees, who was being granted the "Freedom from Want" prize for that year. I had an intuition that hers would be harder to get.
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Accord With Tomato Pickers Ends Boycott Of Taco Bell
March 9, 2005 - Evelyn Nieves, Washington Post
A group of tomato pickers from Florida announced an end to a boycott of Taco Bell yesterday after the fast-food chain and its parent company agreed to meet demands to improve wages and working conditions for the farmworkers.
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Supreme Court Ends Juvenile Death Penalty
March 1, 2005 - Tony Mauro, Legal Times
The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 5-4 that executing juvenile offenders is no longer constitutional, a dramatic reversal of precedent that laid bare angry divisions among the justices.
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The Lawsuit Against Donald Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies
March 1, 2005 - American Civil Liberties Union
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody, the ACLU and Human Rights First charged in the first federal court lawsuit to name a top U.S. official in the ongoing torture scandal in Iraq and Afghanistan that has tarnished America's reputation.
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D.R. Congo: Tens of Thousands Raped, Few Prosecuted
March 7, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
(Kinshasa, March 7, 2005) -- In eastern Congo’s conflict, government troops and rebel fighters have raped tens of thousands of women and girls, but fewer than a dozen perpetrators have been prosecuted by a judicial system in dire need of reform, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on the eve of International Women’s Day.
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Mexico City Chief Supporters Rally: Fans Fight Mayor's Ouster From Race
March 6, 2005 - Chris Hawley, AZCentral.com
MEXICO CITY - A political fight over next year's presidential race is reaching a fever pitch in Mexico City, with supporters of the front-running candidate holding rallies and papering the city with signs protesting his possible disqualification.
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Spanish NGOs Launch "Poverty Zero”: the Biggest Spanish Mobilization against Poverty in History
February 23, 2005 - Caroline Kent, United Nations Today
Today, the Spanish Development NGO’s Coordinator (CONGDE) launched its "Poverty Zero Campaign."
More than 300 people joined CONGDE’s call in the America’s House Amphitheatre, among them Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Almudena Grandes and Maria Galiana. Mayor Zaragoza pledged his support: "This is the people’s century, not the governor’s one. We can’t still shut up and we cant’ just be somebody: we have to be everybody”.
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Human Rights Experts Call For Focusing Attention On Most Vulnerable Tsunami Survivors, Full Participation
January 11, 2005 - United Nations Press Release
The following statement was issued today by 26 mandate-holders of special procedures of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (full list at bottom of document):
In our capacity as Special Procedures mandate-holders appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, we wish to express our condolences and solidarity to the people of South and Southeast Asia for the loss of human life in the earthquake- triggered tsunamis that took place on 26 December 2004, as well as to the people of the Eastern Coast of Africa who were also hit by the tsunami. We are deeply distressed that thousands of individuals and families find themselves confronting a terrible situation that has forced them into homelessness or surviving in inadequate and insecure conditions. We are shocked by the scale of the tragedy and deeply moved by the courage and solidarity shown by the survivors, women, men and children.
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SOUTH AFRICA: Human Rights Commission finds local authorities, government at fault for Khomani suffering
March 10, 2005 - Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
A yearlong investigation by the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) into human rights violations against the Khomani San in South Africa has implicated local authorities and the South African government. The report called for the prosecution of two police officers accused of murdering Optel Rooi, a master tracker and community leader, in January 2004. The report also revealed that local authorities misappropriate funding allocated to provide the 700 Khomani San community members with basic services such as water, sanitation, and waste management.
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Mau Forest Evictions Leave Ogiek Homeless
March 10, 2005 - Karin Oman, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
Hundreds of Ogiek women and children have taken refuge at a catholic mission in Enoosupukia since being evicted from the Mau Forest in western Kenya, reported the Ogiek Rural Integral Projects on March 2.
In a report issued March 7, the national coordinator of the Ogiek Welfare Council, a tribal government body, said that "Tensions are high, with the Ogiek situation worsening day after day … The affected families are not even allowed access to water outside the church as torching and demolition of houses goes on." With their crops and belongings destroyed, the displaced families are also facing starvation.
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Rule Change Lets C.I.A. Freely Send Suspects Abroad to Jails
March 6, 2005 - Douglas Jehl and David Johnston, The New York Times
The process, known as rendition, has been central in the government's efforts to disrupt terrorism, but has been bitterly criticized by human rights groups on grounds that the practice has violated the Bush administration's public pledge to provide safeguards against torture.
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Iran: Blogger Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison
February 24, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
The Iranian government sentenced the prominent blogger Arash Cigarchi to 14 years in prison for expressing his opinions on the Internet and in the international press, marking a new low for freedom of expression in Iran, Human Rights Watch said today.
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It's Called Torture
February 28, 2005 - Bob Herbert, New York Times
As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?
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Delegates to review progress in the 10 years since UN women's conference in Beijing
February 25, 2005 - UN News Centre
Ten years after the United Nations women's conference in Beijing, hundreds of delegates and thousands on non-governmental organization (NGOs) representatives will meet at the United Nations for nearly two weeks to review the world's progress towards equality for women.
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Water belongs to everyone
February 6, 2005 - Latin American Press
With the slogan "Water belongs to everyone," the Oscar Alende Foundation
in early December launched a campaign to collect signatures for a
plebiscite, to be held along with the 2005 legislative elections, that
would recognize the access to water as a fundamental human right and that
would declare water public property exempt from privatization. The organizations argue "water is not something that is bought and sold. It is fundamental, for the good of the present and future generations, to secure the ownership and state control of potable water reserves as well as the public, participatory and sustainable management of this basic resource for human life and economic development."
(must be paid subscriber to view full article)
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Statement by the ILO very High-Level Team at the close of its visit to Myanmar
February 23, 2005 - International Labour Organization
A high-level United Nations labour agency mission to Myanmar to look into allegations of the use of forced labour has called off further discussions because its visit did not include meetings necessary for it to successfully complete its mandate.
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Libel law review over McDonald's ruling
February 16, 2005 - Clare Dyer, The Guardian
The government is to review the libel laws after two penniless environmental campaigners who were sued by McDonald's, the global burger chain, yesterday won a ruling at the European court of human rights that their rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression were violated when they were denied legal aid.
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Asian Fisheries Lost More Than $500 Million to Tsunami
February 18, 2005 - UN News Centre
December’s devastating Indian Ocean tsunami inflicted a loss of more than
half a billion dollars on the fishing sector of the seven worst-affected
countries, with over 111,000 vessels destroyed or damaged, 36,000 engines
lost and 1.7 million units of fishing gear ruined, according to latest
United Nations figures released today.
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Sri Lanka: Killings Highlight Weaknesses in Ceasefire
February 11, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Continued Political Violence Threatens Tsunami Relief
The killings of a senior Tamil Tiger official and a former parliamentarian underscore the need for all sides to address human rights concerns in the Sri Lankan peace process, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Nepal: Danger of “Disappearances” Escalates
February 19, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
Nepal is plunging deeper into a massive human rights crisis following last week’s seizure of power by King Gyanendra and the Royal Nepalese Army, Human Rights Watch said today. With ongoing arrests reported around the country, Human Rights Watch said that there is a risk that some of those being arrested will be “disappeared” by the security forces and never seen again, as happened during Nepal’s last state of emergency in 2001.
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U.S. Proposal for a Darfur Tribunal: Not an Effective Option
February 15, 2005 - Human Rights Watch
A U.N. Commission of Inquiry that the United States helped create recently found that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the “single best mechanism” and the “only credible way” of ensuring justice for Darfur’s victims. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry also detailed in depth in its report why other mechanisms would be inadvisable to bring justice for atrocities in Darfur. (See U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Why Alternatives to the ICC Are Inadvisable for Darfur for relevant excerpts from the report.) Because Sudan is not a party to the treaty establishing the ICC, a Security Council referral is needed for the court to prosecute crimes committed in Darfur.
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Kyoto Protocol comes into force
February 16, 2005 - BBC news
The Kyoto accord, which aims to curb the air pollution blamed for global warming, has come into force seven years after it was agreed.
The accord requires countries to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
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Former Minister in Search of Her Lost `Dignity'
February 4, 2005 - Hirondelle News Agency
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, the former Rwandan minister of family and women affairs, is the first woman to be indicted for genocide by an international jurisdiction. Accused of inciting rape, since Monday she has been trying, through her lawyer, to convince judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to reclaim "her dignity and humanity".
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Japan aid for Khmer Rouge trials
February 10, 2005 - BBC news
Japan has agreed to donate more than $21m to support the UN-backed trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia. It is the largest donation received so far to fund the trials, which were agreed after five years of talks between the government and the UN.
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Bush Seeks Nearly 6 Pct Cut in Environment Funding
February 7, 2005 - Chris Baltimore, Reuters
The Bush administration on Monday proposed cutting the Environmental Protection Agency budget by nearly 6 percent to $7.57 billion in fiscal 2006 by targeting a program that helps cities replace aging sewage systems.
The EPA said the requested reduction was part of the federal government's overall belt-tightening, but environmental groups said it would hurt an important clean water program.
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Somalia: BBC Producer Killed Outside Mogadishu Hotel
February 9, 2005 - Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply saddened by the death of BBC producer Kate Peyton, who was shot today outside her hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Peyton underwent surgery at a local hospital but died later of internal bleeding, according to the BBC.
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Reelection of Thaksin Casts Dark Cloud Over Thai Press
February 8, 2005 - Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)
The overwhelming victory of Thailand’s populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) in the 6 February general election is raising concerns about the future direction of democracy in the country. In particular, political and media observers are concerned that the Prime Minister’s overbearing influence over the Thai media, coupled with a historic mandate that threatens to evolve into a de-facto one-party system in Thailand, could weaken the country’s democratic institutions and put tremendous pressure on the national press to surrender its hard-won rights and freedoms.
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UN rights chief prepares to brief Security Council on possible war crimes in Sudan's Darfur
February 14, 2005 - UN News Centre
As the top United Nations human rights official prepared to brief the Security Council on reported war crimes in Sudan's western Darfur, scattered reports of violence continued to come in today from the region where tens of thousands of people have been killed and up to 1.85 million others displaced in the past two years.
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Following a Paper Trail to the Roots of Torture
February 8, 2005 - MIichiko Kakutani, New York Times
Review of "The Torture Papers"
As soon as the repugnant photos of torture at Abu Ghraib prison - the pyramid of naked prisoners, the groveling man on a dog leash, the hooded man with outstretched arms - hit the airwaves and newspaper stands, they became iconic images: gruesome symbols of what went wrong with the war and postwar occupation of Iraq, and for many in the Muslim world, the very embodiment of their worst fears about American hegemony.
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Outsourcing Torture
February 14, 2005 - Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
On January 27th, President Bush, in an interview with the Times, assured the world that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.” Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was born in Syria, was surprised to learn of Bush’s statement. Two and a half years ago, American officials, suspecting Arar of being a terrorist, apprehended him in New York and sent him back to Syria, where he endured months of brutal interrogation, including torture.
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East Timor: New Law Aims to Stifle Political Dissent
December 29, 2004 - Human Rights Watch
A law regulating demonstrations and assemblies passed by East Timor’s parliament violates basic rights to free expression and assembly, Human Rights Watch said today. President Xanana Gusmao should refuse to sign this law.
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The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran
February 8, 2005 - Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi, New York Times
During her tour of Europe, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has given assurances that a military attack by the United States on Iran "is simply not on the agenda at this point." But notwithstanding Ms. Rice's disavowal, recent statements by the Bush administration, starting with President Bush's State of the Union address and Vice President Dick Cheney's comments about a possible Israeli military attack on Iran, are reminiscent of the rhetoric in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And Ms. Rice herself made clear that "the Iranian regime's human rights behavior and its behavior toward its own population is something to be loathed."
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More Is Not Always Better for Human Rights
February 3, 2005 - Marcela Sanchez, Washington Post
Representatives from 30 Latin American and Caribbean nations gathered in Mexico last week to create a regional body to monitor human rights in the hemisphere. Mexican officials call the organization "an informal mechanism for regional cooperation'' and hail it for its potential to help governments comply with international law. But by its design, the new group will likely be too weak and its methods too modest to do much more than dilute serious and objective criticism of human rights violations.
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Under Pressure, Qatar May Sell Jazeera Station
January 30, 2005 - Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times
The tiny state of Qatar is a crucial American ally in the Persian Gulf, where it provides a military base and warm support for American policies. Yet relations with Qatar are also strained over an awkward issue: Qatar's sponsorship of Al Jazeera, the provocative television station that is a big source of news in the Arab world.
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Somalia: UN Expert Says Respect for Human Rights is Key to Stability
February 8, 2005 - UN News Centre
The United Nations Independent Expert on human rights in Somalia has called
on the new Transitional Federal Government to ensure long-term stability of the Horn of Africa country by incorporating international human rights standards into the rebuilding of its war-shattered institutions.
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Asylum Seekers Treated Poorly, U.S. Panel Says
February 8, 2005 - Nina Bernstein and Marc Santora, New York Times
Thousands of people who come to the United States saying they are seeking refuge from persecution are treated like criminals while their claims are evaluated - strip-searched, shackled and often thrown into solitary confinement in local jails and federal detention centers - a bipartisan federal commission found in a report to be released today.
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Dire Prison Conditions, Violence Against Women Persist in Afghanistan, UN Rights Expert says
February 7, 2005 - UN News Centre
Despite some human rights improvements in Afghanistan such as the release of hundreds of prisoners, matters of concern still persist, including domestic violence against women, a deficient justice system, the deleterious impact of drugs and the dire conditions of prisons, according to a United Nations rights expert.
The UN Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan, Cherif Bassiouni, has also voiced "grave concern" over "a very unusual practice" in which foreign coalition forces have taken upon themselves the right, without legal process, to arrest people, detain them, mistreat them and possibly even torture them.
Key Articles in Draft Disability Treaty Approved at UN Meeting
February 6, 2005 - UN News Centre
In a major step forward for persons with disabilities and humanity as a whole, a United Nations negotiating panel has reached agreement on key provisions in a treaty codifying their rights.
The General Assembly committee on a convention on the rights of persons with disabilities forged accord on draft articles addressing access to justice, privacy, independent living, full inclusion in the community and other individual rights.
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Students Have Appallingly Weak Grasp of Free Speech
February 4, 2005 - THOMAS LIPSCOMB, The Chicago Sun Times
A disturbing study released this week by the Knight Foundation of more than 100,000 students and 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 public and private high schools reveals a high level of misunderstanding of their First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and the press. If an informed electorate is one of the keys to a healthy democracy, America's schools are clearly failing their students and the nation.
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UN Rights Experts Raise Serious Concerns Over Detainees At US Naval Base
February 4, 2005 - UN News Centre
United Nations human rights experts today expressed “serious concerns” over detainees held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by the United States on grounds of terrorism, including “the need to objectively assess” allegations of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in relation to methods of interrogation.
The Second Term: Bush's Anti-Woman Action Plan
November 3, 2004 - Center for Reproductive Rights
A second term will undoubtedly embolden President George W. Bush to step up his efforts to restrict women's reproductive rights. Over the last four years, his administration has already moved to limit women's access to abortion and contraception, silence abortion providers around the world, and cut funds from women's reproductive health services.
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King Imposes State of Emergency and Cuts Communications with Outside World
February 1, 2005 - Reporters Wiithout Borders
Nepal has been plunged back into political crisis following a state of emergency where communications with the outside world have been cut off and martial law imposed in the country. On 1 February 2005, King Gyanendra sacked the government, ordered troops into the streets and closed the international airport. All communications, including e-mail, have been cut and privately-owned FM radio stations have been forced to cancel news programmes, according to Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF).
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International Criminal Court prosecutors receive referral from Central African Republic
January 7, 2005 - UN News Centre
The Central African Republic (CAR) has asked prosecutors from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world's permanent war crimes tribunal, to investigate whether potential crimes have been committed in that country - the third such referral for the new court.
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Spain tries Argentine ex-officer
January 14, 2005 - BBC news
The trial of Argentinean Adolfo Scilingo, a former navy captain, on charges of murder, torture, terrorism, and causing injury has begun in a Spanish court. Doctors who examined the former officer determined he was fit to stand trial despite having been on a hunger strike.
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CIA's 'ghost prisoners' spark rights concerns
January 28, 2005 - ABC News Online
The official wall of silence surrounding the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) so-called 'ghost prisoners' who are being held at secret locations has sparked legal concerns among human rights groups that denounce the practice as abusive.
It is not publicly known exactly how many 'ghost detainees' the CIA is holding, who they are or where they are held, but senior Al Qaeda figures are known to be among their ranks, including Ramzi bin al-Shaibh and Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
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Global warming is 'twice as bad as previously thought'
January 27, 2005 - Steve Connor, Science Editor, The Independent
Global warming might be twice as catastrophic as previously thought, flooding settlements on the British coast and turning the interior into an unrecognisable tropical landscape, the world's biggest study of climate change shows.
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Yushchenko seeks EU membership
January 25, 2005 - BBC News
Ukraine's President, Viktor Yushchenko, has vowed to make democratic reforms irreversible and prepare Ukraine for eventual EU membership.
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IFJ Condemns Restriction on Press Movement in Aceh After Tsunmai Disaster
January 14, 2005 - International Federation of Journalists
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has expressed outrage over the restrictions imposed on journalists in Aceh, Indonesia, announced on 13 January 2005.
“In the midst of this overwhelming tragedy, opening up the previously closed Aceh was a positive step towards greater media freedom in the region,” said IFJ President, Christopher Warren today in a letter to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
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Statement of Human Rights First on its Opposition to Alberto Gonzales’ Confirmation as Attorney General of the United States
January 24, 2005 - Human Rights First
During his tenure as White House Counsel, Mr. Gonzales advised the President that the laws of war do not bind us in the difficult fight against terrorism. He approved a definition of torture so narrow that much of the barbarism depicted in the photos from Abu Ghraib would have been beyond the law to punish. He has contended that U.S. personnel are exempt from the ban on cruel and degrading practices that has been binding U.S. treaty law for more than a decade. And he has embraced the radical view that the President has the power to ignore laws passed by the nation’s representatives in Congress. Such views are anathema to the rule of law, and contrary to the rights the United States has pledged to protect.
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Illegal Workers Face Abuse & Low Wages
December 26, 2004 - Hugh Son, The New York Daily News
Carolina R. worked at a housewares shop in Bushwick for just a month - but
during that brief period, she was sexually harassed, verbally abused and
paid only $3.60 an hour. The 23-year-old undocumented immigrant from
Honduras said her boss at the Knickerbocker Avenue store cursed at her, demanded sexual favors and once choked her until her face turned red. For her troubles, she received a paltry paycheck of $40 a day for working more than 60 hours a week. Around the metropolitan area, tens of thousands of retail, restaurant and factory workers are paid far below minimum wage, said Andrew Friedman of the activist group Make the Road By Walking. Along Knickerbocker Avenue alone, about 200 workers earn low wages and often are not paid for working overtime.
China: Media Barred from Covering Death of Former Communist Leader
January 18, 2005 - IFEX Communique, IFEX Communique
Fearing possible protests, China's Communist Party has ordered television stations and newspapers not to report on the death this week of former leader Zhao Zhiyang, who was purged for opposing the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. The order comes amid a new wave of censorship against government critics, say International PEN and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF).
Guard Sentenced to 10 Years for Abuse at Abu Ghraib
January 16, 2005 - T.R. Reid, The Boston Globe
FORT HOOD, Texas -- Former Army prison guard Charles A. Graner Jr. was sentenced to 10 years in a military stockade yesterday for his role in abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, an episode that provoked a wave of anti-American indignation around the world last spring.
The 10-member military jury passed sentence three hours after hearing Graner deliver an unsworn statement, not subject to cross-examination, in which he said superior officers instructed him to take actions at the prison that he knew would "violate the Geneva Conventions."
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CHILE’S SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS PINOCHET CHARGES
January 5, 2005 - Tom Burgis, The Santiago Times
(Jan. 5, 2005) Augusto Pinochet is on the brink of a murder trial after the highest court in Chile ruled Tuesday he is fit to answer for crimes committed during his 17-year dictatorship.
The five senior justices of the Supreme Court voted 3-2 to support an earlier Court of Appeals decision rejecting the former dictator’s appeal against nine charges of kidnapping and one of murder brought last month by Judge Juan Guzmán (ST, Dec. 14, 2004).
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Peace treaty ends Sudan's civil war, but conflict in Darfur rages on
January 10, 2005 - SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN, Knight Ridder Newspapers, Sudan Tribune
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 9, 2005 (KRT) -- Sudan's government and southern rebels clinched a historic, long-awaited agreement Sunday that ends Africa's longest civil war and brings hope to millions of exiled Sudanese yearning to return home.
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We Are All Torturers Now
January 6, 2005 - MARK DANNER, The New York Times
At least since Watergate, Americans have come to take for granted a certain story line of scandal, in which revelation is followed by investigation, adjudication and expiation. Together, Congress and the courts investigate high-level wrongdoing and place it in a carefully constructed narrative, in which crimes are charted, malfeasance is explicated and punishment is apportioned as the final step in the journey back to order, justice and propriety.
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Fourth Journalist, Ohn Kyaing, Released from Jail
January 4, 2005 - Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and PEN Canada have welcomed the recent release of four Burmese journalists from prison but are urging authorities to free eight others who remain behind bars, including award-winning editor U Win Tin.
On 3 January 2005, Zaw Thet Htwe, Thein Tan, Aung Myint and Ohn Kyaing were released from prison. They were among thousands of prisoners freed that day by the military junta. Zaw Thet Htwe, an editor of the sports magazine "First Eleven," had been serving a three-year sentence for
"high treason," based on unproven allegations that he was linked to an assassination attempt against government leaders. RSF says more than 6,000 people signed a joint RSF-Amnesty International petition last year calling for his release.
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WAN Salutes Courageous Tsunami Coverage
January 11, 2005 - The World Association of Newspapers
In Aceh, Indonesia, one of the areas worst hit by the tsunami that devastated coastal communities in South Asia, the journalists and support staff of "Serambi Indonesia" refuse to succumb to tragedy. Despite the deaths of half its staff, the newspaper - the only independent daily in Aceh - is continuing to publish, reports the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).
The tsunami killed half of "Serambi Indonesia's" 200 staff and destroyed its printing plant. Many survivors lost family members, and most of their homes were destroyed. Yet the newspaper, located in Banda Aceh, one of the hardest hit localities, resumed publication five days after the disaster, bringing vital information to local people on where to find food, medical help, and news of relatives, family and friends.
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Newly Released Reports Show Early Concern on Prison Abuse
January 6, 2005 - Kate Zernike, The New York Times
In late 2002, more than a year before a whistle-blower slipped military investigators the graphic photographs that would set off the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, an F.B.I. agent at the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, sent a colleague an e-mail message complaining about the military's "coercive tactics" with detainees, documents released yesterday show.
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Displacement Caused by Tsunami Points to Need for Cooperation in Disaster Preparedness, UN Human Rights Expert Says
December 28, 2004 - Walter Kälin, Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, United Nations
The Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons joins with others in the international community in expressing his deep concern and sadness at the enormous loss of life by the devastating earthquake and tidal wave that struck the South Asia region. In particular, he is concerned about the plight of the more than one million persons displaced by this disaster.
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Did President Bush Order Torture?
December 21, 2004 - Human Rights Watch
U.S. President George W. Bush should fully explain why an FBI document suggests he authorized unlawful interrogation methods, Human Rights Watch said today. An e-mail to senior FBI officials released yesterday under a Freedom of Information Act request repeatedly referred to an Executive Order that permitted military interrogators in Iraq to place detainees in painful stress positions, impose sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, intimidate them with military dogs and use other coercive methods.
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Guatemalan Government unveils plans for Maya University
December 28, 2004 - Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
On December 10, Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum presented plans for a university in Guatemala that will be directed and administered by Maya people. According to the Associated Press, Berger said recognition of "the immense spiritual and cultural richness of the Mayan people" would help Guatemala build "a multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual state." The majority of Guatemala's 11.2 million inhabitants are indigenous.
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Oklahoma Gathering Celebrates Close of the UN Decade
December 28, 2004 - Lisa Matthews, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
On December 11, the University of Tulsa hosted one of only a few celebrations in the world marking the close of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous leaders from throughout the Americas joined local Indian community leaders at the educational conference and powwow, organized and sponsored by the Tulsa Committee on the International Decade of Indigenous Peoples, a part of the Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry, to commemorate the work of indigenous leaders leading up to and during the International Decade.
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American Indians Look to Build on Voter Turnout Success
December 28, 2004 - Maryann Ullmann, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
Even though Election Day in the United States has come and gone, efforts to mobilize Native voters continue.
"We’re much busier after the election than I ever thought we would be," said Alyssa Macy, political development and policy director for the Center for Civic Participation, a new nonprofit organization created at the close of the National Voice project, which ended after the November 2 election. "I thought I was going to have a break, but it has not slowed down."
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European Journalists Raise Concerns Over Turkey’s Record on Media Rights As EU Leaders Meet
December 15, 2004 - European Federation of Journalists
The European Federation of Journalists, the regional group of the International Federation of Journalists, today expressed concern over Turkey’s record on rights of journalists and press freedom as European leaders gathered in Brussels to decide on whether to start talks with Ankara over the country’s application to join the European Union.
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Nepal: Human Rights Defenders Under Threat
December 19, 2004 - Human Rights Watch
Human rights defenders in Nepal face grave threats amid the country's deepening human rights crisis, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists said today.
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Too Darn Hot - Global Warming Accelerates the Spread of Disease
December 22, 2004 - Jim Motavalli, with research assistance by Aaron Midler, E/The Environmental Magazine
Heat stress is probably the most obvious thing people think of when the idea of global warming comes up. A heat wave in Europe during the summer of 2003 killed more than 10,000 people in France alone. Many of the dead were elderly; the group most likely to live alone and most susceptible to heat-related health problems.
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In Leavitt's Wake, Kempthorne on Short List for EPA Head
December 22, 2004 - Roddy Scheer, E/The Enviromental Magazine
After serving little more than a year at the helm of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), former three-term Utah governor Mike Leavitt is getting a promotion to head up the Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services. Leavitt is known for towing the Republican party line, and is expected to be easily confirmed to replace outgoing HHS secretary Tommy Thompson.
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Iraq: Italian Journalist Killed, French Reporters Held Hostage
December 21, 2004 - IFEX
Conditions in Iraq continue to be extremely unsafe for journalists and media personnel. An Italian journalist was murdered last week, while a militant group is threatening to kill two French reporters who are being held hostage, report IFEX members.
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Leading Journalist Murdered, Parliament Passes Repressive Media
December 21, 2004 - International Freedom of Expression Exchange
IFEX members are expressing alarm at the state of press freedom in The Gambia, where a leading journalist was murdered last week and two bills that impose harsh penalties on the media were passed in parliament.
On the night of 16 December 2004, Deyda Hydara was gunned down while driving home from the offices of his newspaper in the capital, Banjul. Two of his employees were injured in the shooting.
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UN Geneva Office Bugged, Latest Reported Case of Spying on World Body Officials
December 17, 2004 - UN News Centre
A sophisticated bugging device has been found in a room used for high-level meetings at the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), the world body’s largest duty station outside its New York Headquarters, but it is not known who was responsible for this latest reported tapping of UN premises, a UN spokesperson said today.
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Terror Detainees Win Lords Appeal
December 16, 2004 - BBC News World Edition
Detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial breaks human rights laws, the UK's highest court has ruled.
In a blow to the government's anti-terror measures, the House of Lords ruled by an eight to one majority in favour of appeals by nine detainees.
The Law Lords said the measures were incompatible with European human rights laws, but Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the men will remain in prison.
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Eskimos Seek to Recast Global Warming as a Rights Issue
December 15, 2004 - Andrew C. Revkin, The New York Times
The Eskimos, or Inuit, about 155,000 seal-hunting peoples scattered around the Arctic, plan to seek a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the United States, by contributing substantially to global warming, is threatening their existence.
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Unocal to Settle Rights Claims
December 14, 2004 - Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times
The El Segundo firm agrees to pay to end a landmark case brought by villagers claiming abuses by troops along a Myanmar pipeline.
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Unocal Settles Rights Cases in Myanmar
December 14, 2004 - Associated Press, New York Times
Human rights groups lauded the announcement by lawyers that an agreement in principle has been reached to settle human rights lawsuits against oil giant Unocal Corp. over a 1990s pipeline project in Southeast Asia.
Unocal Corp. will settle the lawsuits filed in state and federal courts by paying villagers and funding improvements to living conditions along the project route, lawyers on both sides said Monday.
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Pinochet Indicted on Human Rights Charges
December 14, 2004 - Eduardo Gallardo, Washington Post
Judge Says Former Dictator Is Healthy Enough for Trial: A Chilean judge, known for pursuing human rights violators, indicted former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet on Monday on charges of kidnapping nine political dissidents and killing one of them during his 17-year military regime.
Pinochet also was placed under house arrest to await this third attempt to try him for alleged abuses during his rule in the South American country.
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Human Rights Day Is Worth Observing
December 10, 2004 - Geraldine M. Tocchini, The Morning Call
On a day when the world is again engaged in war, I write in honor of International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10. This is a day to call attention to each of the world's governments in the expectation that they offer their citizens basic economic, social and cultural rights.
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Zimbabwe Curbs Rights Groups
December 9, 2004 - BBC News World Edition
Zimbabwe's parliament has passed a controversial bill which bans international human rights groups from working in the country.
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International Mechanisms for Promoting Freedom of Expression
December 8, 2004 - Organization of American States
Around the world, there is a growing recognition of the need to ensure that citizens can access information held by public authorities. In recent years, many governments have adopted laws recognising the public's right to request and obtain official records. That recognition was affirmed this week in a joint declaration by the free expression rapporteurs of the UN, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
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US Firmly Anti-Kyoto as UN Climate Talks Start
December 7, 2004 - Planet Ark's daily Reuters World Environment News
BUENOS AIRES - The United States showed no signs of budging in its opposition to the Kyoto protocol on Monday as UN climate change talks began, a month after President George W. Bush's reelection and Russia's ratification of the agreement.
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High Cancer Rates in Greene County Fuel Concerns About Monitoring Pollution
December 7, 2004 - Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A new study by a national environmental organization says government agencies aren't adequately monitoring air and water pollution or enforcing environmental standards in Greene County, where cancer rates are among the highest in the state and nation.
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Fighting This Conservancy Won't Be a Walk in the Park
October 22, 2004 - Lisa Richardson, Los Angeles Times
First they fought off a power plant. Then they defeated a garbage dump. Now people who have struggled for decades to transform a forlorn patch of hills and swamps into a park stretching from the Baldwin Hills to Culver City are preparing to take on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The California Performance Review, charged by Schwarzenegger with finding ways to save money and streamline state bureaucracy, has recommended eliminating the Baldwin Hills Conservancy and four others, including one in the San Gabriel Valley.
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The Drug War on the Amazon - Colombia's National Parks Threatened by Aerial Fumigation
November 4, 2004 - Rebecca Bowe, E/The Environmental Magazine
On almost any given day in the southern part of Colombia, spray planes fly in with a mission to destroy the cocaine crops that dot the region’s small farms. It starts with the even beat of a military helicopter, followed by a plane that sprays a chemical stream. The substance used is a mixture of glyphosate, water, and added surfactants, comprising a powerful herbicide manufactured by Monsanto that is chemically similar to Roundup.
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Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo
November 30, 2004 - Neil A. Lewis, New York Times
The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantánamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantánamo.
The team of humanitarian workers, which included experienced medical personnel, also asserted that some doctors and other medical workers at Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in what the report called "a flagrant violation of medical ethics."
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World 'Failed' Bhopal Gas Victims
November 29, 2004 - BBC News World Edition
The world has failed to help survivors of the Bhopal gas leak in India 20 years ago or to punish the guilty, Amnesty International says.
The human rights group says India's government has not distributed most of the nearly $500m compensation paid by US firm Union Carbide, the plant owner.
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Labor Goes The Distance: Garment Union Plans Trip To China
November 15, 2004 - Xiaoqing Rong, City Limits Weekly, Number: 460
Group sends organizers abroad in the hopes of preserving industry at home.
With quotas on Chinese textile and apparel products expiring in less than two months, New York’s battered garment industry is braced for another staggering blow. But facing competition from cheaper labor on the other side of the globe, a union representing textile workers in Manhattan’s Chinatown is taking an unusual approach: setting out to level the playing field—starting in China.
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States Are Battling Against Wal-Mart Over Health Care
November 1, 2004 - Reed Abelson, The New York Times
Although Wal-Mart officials flatly deny it, some Wal-Mart employees say they are encouraged to turn to public health care assistance. When Wal-Mart hired Samantha Caizza, a single mother of three, as a cashier at its Chehalis, Wash., store last November, she says she was told by a personnel manager "to get ahold of the state" for coverage for her children.
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UN to Boost its Support for Human Rights Protection in Numerous Countries
October 26, 2004
The United Nations is set to launch a new initiative tomorrow to strengthen its support in promoting and protecting human rights in countries around the world.
Known as "Action Two," the plan is a response to a report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on ensuring that the world body devotes its
attention to the priorities identified by its Member States.
The scheme ultimately aims to develop a common understanding of the
linkages between human rights and development or humanitarian actions,
establish thematic groups to deal with human rights issues in UN country
teams, and have UN agencies develop cooperative programming arrangements
to support national efforts to foster a culture of human rights,
including through education.
Drug Reform Group Sends Back Ford Foundation Grant Because of Anti-terrorism Clause
November 24, 2004 - David Crary, San Francisco Chronicle
The Drug Policy Alliance, an outspoken advocate of reforming drug laws, said Wednesday it is returning a $200,000 grant from the Ford Foundation rather than accept restrictions imposed in conjunction with new federal anti-terrorist guidelines.
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Housing Report Slams US and Sudan
November 24, 2004 - Imogen Foulkes, BBC News World Edition
The United States, Russia and Sudan have been accused of being the biggest violators of housing rights in 2004.
The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions cites the US because of its high homelessness rates.
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Abortion Nightmare in Nepal
November 8, 2004 - Yvonne Singh, BBC News World Edition
Because Shanti's pregnancy was so far advanced, the authorities suspected she had had an abortion.
She was arrested while recovering in hospital and four armed police stood guard by her bed. "I was so sick there was no reason for them to guard me, I could not run anywhere," she said.
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Climate Change May Reverse Progress on Fighting Poverty
November 4, 2004 - Roddy Scheer, E/The Environmental Magazine
The Working Group on Climate Change and Development, a coalition of environmental and relief aid organizations, released a report last week stating that the onset of global warming threatens to undermine progress made in recent decades on lifting residents of many developing nations out of poverty.
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Human Rights for the Disabled
November 4, 2004 - Dick Thornburgh, Washington Post OpEd
The United Nations is drafting a convention to provide international guidelines for the rights of more than 600 million people with disabilities. The convention will provide people with disabilities the same compassionate legal protection that women, children, refugees and other vulnerable populations have under international human rights law.
But does the U.S. government support this work? No. The Bush administration has taken the position that disability is neither a human rights issue nor a predicate for international law but strictly a domestic policy matter.
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Nobel Winner Ebadi Sues U.S. to Publish Memoirs
November 3, 2004 - Claudia Parsons, ABC News
Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi has sued the United States because its economic embargo on Iran is blocking publication of her memoirs in America, a literary agency said on Wednesday.
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Responding to the Challenge of Four More Years of the Bush Administration’s War on Women
November 3, 2004 - Statement by Nancy Northup, Center for Reproductive Rights
President Bush’s reelection presents pro-choice forces with another four years of his administration’s relentless war on women. The Center for Reproductive Rights is ready to continue opposing and countering every administration assault. We are confident that we will prevail because we have the strongest weapon on our side: the U.S. Constitution.
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Climate Change to Disrupt Inuit Life, new Report Warns
November 2, 2004 - Corinne Wesh, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
A preview of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) presented October 5 to the fourth World Conference of Science Journalists in Montreal drew attention to the threat global warming is posing to indigenous cultures of the Arctic Circle as sea ice and marine life becomes scarce.
In an effort to clarify the often misunderstood topic of climate change and emphasize the urgency of dealing with rising temperatures, a team of more than 600 scientists from across the globe, together with Inuit and other Arctic peoples, has worked for the past four years to draw up the 1,800-page report on the current and future impact of climate change in the Arctic.
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Canada Struggles to Provide Food Security for Northern Communities
November 2, 2004 - Deidre d’Entremont, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
A jug of milk in some aboriginal communities in northern Manitoba, Canada, can cost as much as $15, and a single apple can set residents back $1 or $2, reports CBC Manitoba. Though the price of perishables has come down over the past decade, northern communities in Manitoba have at times paid more than twice what comparable goods cost in Winnipeg, according to a joint report by representatives from the tribal councils, the provincial government, and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC).
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O'Connor Extols Role of International Law
October 27, 2004 - Hope Yen, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor extolled Wednesday the growing role of international law in U.S. courts, saying judges would be negligent if they disregarded its importance in a post-Sept. 11 world of heightened tensions.
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American Indians Mobilize to Get Out the Vote
October 25, 2004 - Maryann Ullmann, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
The United States Republican and Democratic parties have set up camp next door to each other in the Navajo Nation. Both anticipate the upcoming presidential election to be tight, and they're starting to understand the importance of potential American Indian votes in key swing districts. So are American Indians.
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Report documents violence against indigenous women
October 25, 2004 - Cultural Survival, Amnesty International
On October 4, Amnesty International released a report that accuses Canadian officials of being unable to protect aboriginal women from violent attacks in Canada. According to Canadian government statistics, indigenous Canadian women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely than all other Canadian women to die of violence. The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC), an aggregate of organizations representing First Nations and Métis women, estimates that 500 aboriginal women have gone missing over the past 30 years in Canada.
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Indian law added to [Washington State] Bar Exam
October 23, 2004 - Sara Jean Green, The Seattle Times
On October 22 the Washington State Bar Association's governing body voted unanimously to add questions on Indian law to Washington's state bar exam. Washington and New Mexico are the only two U.S. states to include a question on Indian law on their bar exam. Twenty-nine federally recognized tribes reside in Washington.
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Kenyan Environmentalist Wins Nobel Peace Prize
October 20, 2004 - Roddy Scheer, E-magazine.com
In what analysts are reporting as a conscious effort to eschew the politics of current events in Iraq, the Nobel committee has chosen Kenyan Green Belt Movement founder Wangari Maathai as the 2004 recipient of its annual $1.3 million peace prize.
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MISA, IFJ Back Calls for Free Expression Treaty
October 19, 2004 - Media Institute of Southern Africa, IFEX COMMUNIQUÉ VOL 13 NO 42
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) have joined more than 40 leading intellectuals and human rights groups in calling on the African Union (AU) to adopt a pan-African treaty to protect freedom of expression and academic freedom.
At the African Union Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora, which took place in Dakar, Senegal from 6 to 9 October 2004, participants released a set of recommendations urging AU member states to set targets for repealing laws and practices that undermined academic freedom and freedom of expression. They said these freedoms were "prerequisites for the contribution of intellectuals and all citizens to the development of the continent and must be protected through a continental level treaty."
Organisations that endorsed the recommendations included CREDO for Freedom of Expression and Associated Rights, FAHAMU and the Inter-African Network For Women, Media, Gender and
Development. Nigerian Nobel Prize Laureate Wole Soyinka, one of the participants, also expressed support for a treaty. He said, "A nation develops through the liberal flow of ideas. Freedom of expression guarantees that flow and thus, the fullest development of the nation."
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US: Journalists' Right to Protect Sources Threatened
October 19, 2004 - IFEX COMMUNIQUÉ VOL 13 NO 42
One of the indicators of a free press is the degree to which journalists are able to protect their sources. In the United States, that privilege is being sorely tested, with prosecutors compelling more journalists to reveal their sources this year than in decades, reports the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
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He Ain't Heavy. . .
October 20, 2004 - Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times
"I photographed Abdelrahim and Muhammad in their mostly abandoned Darfur village, where the murderous Janjaweed militia, backed by the Sudanese government, has already killed seven members of their family. The boys have been hiding for months here in a war zone, hungry and frightened and hunted like wild beasts...
The lackadaisical international response has already permitted the deaths of about 100,000 people in Darfur, and up to 10,000 more are dying each month. We should look Abdelrahim and Muhammad in the eye and feel deeply ashamed."
The piece contains a link within to an Op-Ed special interactive report, in which Kristof argues that the international community has once again fallen short on promises to rid the world of genocide.
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Report Urges UN to take Preventative Measures against Threats to Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Minorities
October 18, 2004 - Karin Oman, Cultural Survival Weekly Indigenous News
Conflict and violence between and directed toward indigenous and ethnic groups is widespread in the world today. Ethnic minorities are routinely denied basic human rights, most notably in Sudan, but also in Burma, Tibet, and other countries. The link between protecting minorities’ rights and preventing conflict, specifically genocide, was highlighted recently in a report submitted by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) to the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change.
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Immigrants’ Rights under Attack in House Bill (H.R. 10)
October 6, 2004 - Human Rights Watch
Analysis from Human Rights Watch of the proposed House Bill(HR 10)-Implementing the 9-11 Commission Recommendations.
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Local union, North Carolina pickler to sign contract; pact to afect 8000 migrant workers
September 16, 2004 - Jon Chavez, The Toledo Blade
Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)signs historic contract with North Carolina Growers Association and side-agreement with Mt. Olive Pickle Company ending the five year old boycott of the pickle company and giving Mexican migrant farm workers a voice and a vote in the economic decisions affecting their work.
Braving the Streets Her Way
October 2, 2004 - Anne Hull, The Washington Post
In courtrooms, statehouses and city halls across the country, a historic battle is being fought over the expansion of rights for gay people. Far below the revolution is Felicia Holt, whose life is as hidden from the national debate as her box of stashed love notes.
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D.C. Jail Stay Ends in Death For Quadriplegic Md. Man
October 1, 2004 - Henri E. Cauvin, The Washington Post
Jonathan Magbie, a 27-year-old Mitchellville man, was sent to jail in the District last week for 10 days for marijuana possession.
He never made it home.
Paralyzed as a child and unable to even breathe on his own, Magbie died last Friday after being shuttled between the D.C. jail complex and Greater Southeast Community Hospital.
At the center of the many questions surrounding his death is whether D.C. Superior Court and the D.C. Department of Corrections did enough to ensure adequate care for the quadriplegic inmate.
An investigation is underway, but that is little solace to his family, which marched on the courthouse this week with signs accusing the judge of killing Magbie.
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Baghdad Year Zero
September 24, 2004 - Naomi Klein, Harper's Magazine
The article is on the failed economic reconstruction of Iraq.
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Why More Africans Don't Use Human Rights Language
September 2, 2004 - Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, published December, 1999
While Africa's human rights problems are immense, even ubiquitous, most of our people do not describe their problems in human rights terms. Many communities and groups involved in social justice movements and initiatives in Africa are reluctant to make the Universal Declaration, or language inspired by it, their mascot or medium. To seek to explain this by reference to the high illiteracy level in Africa - itself a denial of several human rights - is to avoid the problem.
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Amid China's Boom, No Helping Hand for Young Qingming
August 1, 2004 - Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley, The New York Times
PUJIA, China — His dying debt was $80. Had he been among China's urban elite, Zheng Qingming would have spent more on a trendy cellphone. But he was one of the hundreds of millions of peasants far removed from the country's new wealth. His public high school tuition alone consumed most of his family's income for a year.
He wanted to attend college. But to do so meant taking the annual college entrance examination. On the humid morning of June 4, three days before the exam, Qingming's teacher repeated a common refrain: he had to pay his last $80 in fees or he would not be allowed to take the test. Qingming stood before his classmates, his shame overtaken by anger.
"I do not have the money," he said slowly, according to several teachers who described the events that morning. But his teacher — and the system — would not budge.
A few hours later, Qingming, 18 years old, stepped in front of an approaching locomotive. The train, like China's roaring economy, was an express.
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Dozens of Nations Weigh In on Death Penalty Case
July 20, 2004 - David Stout, The New York Times
WASHINGTON, July 19 - A death sentence imposed for a 1993
murder in Missouri rose to the level of an international
issue on Monday as dozens of countries urged the Supreme
Court to block the execution of murderers who kill before
the age of 18.
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More Firms Join UN Push To Be Good Corporate Citizens
July 19, 2004 - Alexandra MacRae, The Christian Science Monitor
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. – It started with a vision of what business could be. At the urging of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 38 companies, including Nike and Volvo, embraced nine principles ranging from not hiring child workers to cutting down greenhouse gas emissions.
Now, five years later, some 1,500 firms have signed on to what has become the world's largest corporate citizenship initiative, the United Nations Global Compact, which held its first summit here last month. That explosive growth illustrates what many business leaders already believe: Corporate social responsibility is entering the mainstream.
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Justice And The War On Terrorism
July 15, 2004 - Robert Gard, Deborah Pearlstein, San Francisco Chronicle
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected decisively last month the Bush administration's ad hoc approach to detaining those caught up in its global "war on terrorism." No less a champion of civil liberties than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia insisted that "[i]f civil rights are to be curtailed during wartime, it must be done openly and democratically, as the Constitution requires, rather than by silent erosion through an opinion of this court." Congress might have to step in. But whatever the pressing demands of security, there can be no more law avoidance achieved "by silent erosion" - - unilaterally or in secret.
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Brazil 'slavery' damned by report
July 19, 2004 - Steve Kingstone, BBC News
At least 25,000 people are working as slave labourers in Brazil, according to a new report obtained by the BBC.
The study, carried out on behalf of the International Labor Organization, says workers are living in conditions unfit for animals.
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Colorado group launches gay advocacy ads
July 14, 2004 - Detroit Free Press
With debate raging about same-sex marriage, a Denver-based gay advocacy group has launched an ad campaign intended to steer voter attention to an even more basic issue: workplace discrimination.
The Gill Foundation is testing television ads in Michigan, Florida and Colorado featuring two men and two women who say they were fired for being homosexual or fear the consequences of being honest about their personal lives.
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Kosovo Report Criticizes Rights Progress by U.N. and Local Leaders
July 13, 2004 - Nicholas Wood, The New York Times
The United Nations mission in Kosovo and local Albanian leaders have been extensively criticized in an annual report on human rights in the internationally administered province.
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The Power of Youth
July 12, 2004 - Susanne Koelbl (Translated from Der Spiegel by Christopher Sultan), The New York Times
Young Iranians look to excessive drug use and parties to escape their stifling lives. Following the conservatives' victory in parliament, many have turned away from politics. Religious hard-liners want to see a return to the Islamic model state.
Assal means honey, and that's what she looks like, sweet and seductive. She has conspicuously framed her black eyes with Kajal, her pale eye shadow is dabbed up to the high painted arches of her eyebrows, and her lower lip is pierced with a shiny ring.
Assal lies, trance-like, in the arms of her boyfriend, Mehdi. They have just kissed. Assal inhales the hot smoke of the designer drug "Ice," which makes her "high and light." It's Thursday night, party time in Tehran.
But Assal's back is covered with welts that haven't healed yet. A few weeks ago, the 19-year-old received 74 lashes with a braided leather whip, in the basement of the Tehran morals court on Bucharest Street. When she could no longer stand the pain, she begged for mercy. But the judge only instructed his assistant to press the girl more tightly against the frame of an iron bed, and told the woman inflicting the blows to hurry up and finish the punishment.
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Mutilating Africa's Daughters: Laws Unenforced, Practices Unchanged
July 5, 2004 - Tina Rosenberg, The New York Times
Mariam Bagayoko was a powerful and respected person in Bamako, the capital of Mali. Now she is shunned and criticized by many of her neighbors. Ms. Bagayoko used to perform what the West has come to know as female genital mutilation, a practice inflicted on more than 90 percent of girls in Mali.
In 1988, she began to get visits, sometimes twice a week, from Kadidia Sidibe, the director of a Bamako women's group opposed to the practice. At first, Ms. Bagayoko hid when her visitor approached. But after seven years, Ms. Sidibe's photos and videos of mutilated girls with serious health problems finally persuaded her to stop.
Finality Seems to Elude High Court's Grasp
July 4, 2004 - Charles Lane, The Washington Post
In Ruling on Constitutional Controversies, the Justices Are Leaving Them Unsettled.
The day before the Supreme Court ended its term last week, Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's 85-year-old liberal lion, mounted his seat at the mahogany bench and took aim at his conservative colleagues for "avoidance of our duty."
The same five-member majority that had ruled for George W. Bush in the disputed 2000 election had just invoked procedural reasons to dismiss the case of a U.S. citizen, Jose Padilla, who was challenging his indefinite incommunicado military detention by the Bush administration.
The five -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas -- had concluded, over Stevens's objections, that the court could not responsibly stay out of the election dispute. Now, Stevens expressed dismay that they would show judicial restraint in a case where, he said, "nothing less than the essence of a free society" was at stake.
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About Independence
July 4, 2004 - Editorial, The New York Times
People too often get the impression that the only people who use the nation's civil liberties protections are lawbreakers who were not quite guilty of the exact felony they were charged with. Perhaps we should thank the Bush administration for providing so many situations that demonstrate how an unfettered law enforcement system, even one pursuing worthy ends, can destroy the lives of the innocent out of hubris or carelessness.
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Human Rights Abuses Worldwide Are Held to Fall Under U.S. Courts
June 30, 2004 - Linda Greenhouse, New York Times
A Supreme Court decision on Tuesday kept federal courts open to lawsuits by foreigners who allege that they were victims of serious human rights violations anywhere in the world.
The decision interpreting the Alien Tort Statute came as a relief to human rights organizations that had feared the court would accept the Bush administration's invitation to narrow the application of the 215-year-old law.
At the same time, the result was a sharp disappointment to international business interests, which have been alarmed by increasing use of the law to sue multinational corporations for human rights violations and had looked to the Supreme Court to curb the trend.
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IFEX General Meeting Calls for Increased Free Expression Worldwide
June 30, 2004 - International Freedom of Expression eXchange
From 13-18 June 2004, the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) held its 11th General Meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, bringing together representatives of more than 80 organisations dedicated to free expression. Participants discussed the most pressing issues of the day, including Internet censorship, journalists' safety around the world, and the use by many governments of anti-terrorism laws to suppress free speech.
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Human Rights Abuses Worldwide Are Held to Fall Under U.S. Courts
June 29, 2004 - Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times
A Supreme Court decision on Tuesday kept federal courts open to lawsuits by foreigners who allege that they were victims of serious human rights violations anywhere in the world.
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Aides Say Memo Backed Coercion for Qaeda Cases
June 27, 2004 - David Johnston and James Risen, The New York Times
A Justice Department memo helped provide an after-the-fact rationale for harsh methods used by the C.I.A. on Qaeda leaders.
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U.S. Drops Plan to Exempt G.I.s From U.N. Court
June 24, 2004 - Warren Hoge, New York Times
The United States bowed Wednesday to broad opposition on the Security Council and announced it was dropping its effort to gain immunity for its troops from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
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Dare We Call It Genocide?
June 16, 2004 - Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
The Bush administration says it is exploring whether to describe the mass murder and rape in the Darfur region of Sudan as "genocide." I suggest that President Bush invite to the White House a real expert, Magboula Muhammad Khattar, a 24-year-old widow huddled under a tree here.
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UN chief urges fair trade action
June 14, 2004 - BBC News
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on trading nations to do more to help the poor benefit from international commerce.
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Arbour ready for U.N. role
June 7, 2004 - Allan Thompson, Toronto Star
Human rights have come "under siege" during the U.S.-led war on terrorism, Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour said yesterday in her first interview since being appointed to the world's top human rights post.
Arbour, the former chief war crimes prosecutor who leaves Canada's Supreme Court at the end of this month to become the United Nations high commissioner for human rights in Geneva, stressed that terrorism itself is an egregious and absolutely inexcusable violation of human rights. Yesterday, she gave an exclusive one-hour interview at her Ottawa home.
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Groups Sue Pentagon Over Iraq Abuses
June 4, 2004 - Jim Lobe, AntiWar.com
A coalition of civil-rights and veterans groups charged in a New York court Wednesday that the U.S. Defense Department is withholding records about the abuse of detainees in military custody as part of the Bush administration's "war against terrorism."
The federal court lawsuit accuses the Pentagon of failing to comply with a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request the groups filed in October 2003. It also named the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State along with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
"The administration's ongoing refusal to release these records is absolutely unacceptable, particularly in light of the severity of the abuses we now know to have occurred," said Jameel Jaffer, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the groups that filed the lawsuit.
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US Condemned Over Rights Abuses
May 26, 2004 - BBC News: World Edition
The US-led "war on terror" is behind a surge of human rights abuses around the world, according to a report by Amnesty International.
The organisation said America's offensive against global terrorism was "bankrupt of vision" and had "made the world a more dangerous place."
It said the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US still dominated the state of human rights.
Amnesty also criticised other countries for their treatment of terror suspects.
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Staving Off Starvation: When Real Food Isn't an Option
May 23, 2004 - Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times - Week in Review
In a world where the rich spend millions on ways to avoid carbohydrates, the reality is that far more people struggle each day just to get enough calories.
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Did Abu Ghraib abuses start in Pennsylvania prison?
May 18, 2004 - Jeff Garis, The Morning Call
''Daddy, how did you and mommy meet?'' As the parent of two children, I've heard that question at least twice. Probably more. Lately, I've wondered how the couple at the center of what Amnesty International has called ''war crimes'' -- Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Pfc. Lynndie England -- might eventually answer that question from their as-yet unborn child:
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Boston Globe Op-Ed on Iraq Prisoner Abuse
May 15, 2004 - Kerry Kennedy, Michael Posner, Boston Globe
SECRETARY OF Defense Donald Rumsfeld's surprise trip to Baghdad is the latest step in the Bush administration's campaign to repair the damage done by the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In condemning these abuses, Rumsfeld has made it clear that they were "inconsistent with our values," contrary to "teachings of the military," and "un-American."
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Leading Human Rights Groups Confront President Bush about Iraqi Detainees
May 7, 2004 - Business Wire
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U.S. Fails To Block U.N. Anti-Torture Vote
July 22, 2002 - United Nations
The United States failed to block a U.N. vote Wednesday on a plan to strengthen a treaty on torture, and was widely criticized by allies for trying to do so.
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When the Last Oil Well Runs Dry
April 19, 2004 - Alex Kirby, BBC
Just as certain as death and taxes is the knowledge that we shall one day be forced to learn to live without oil.
Exactly when that day will dawn nobody knows, but people in middle age today can probably expect to be here for it.
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NRDC Report Shows Carbon Dioxide Pollution Increasing from Top 100 Electric Companies
May 4, 2004 - NDRC
A new report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) rating air-pollution emissions performance of America's 100 largest electric power producers reveals important trends in the industry, and sharp contrasts between the best and worst emissions performers. The report shows overall emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) are dropping, thanks largely to standards created in the Clean Air Act of 1990. Meanwhile emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which remain unregulated, are soaring.
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Grassroots Activists Receive 2004 Goldman Environmental Prize
May 4, 2004 - Roddy Scheer, E/The Environmental Magazine
What do individuals who fought a water privatization project in Ghana, campaigned to protect the environment and people of the Republic of Georgia from a major oil pipeline, sought justice for an industrial disaster that killed 20,000 people, and battled a Louisiana chemical plant spewing toxic fumes have in common? They are the 2004 winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors the work of grassroots environmental activists from around the world.
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Successful Start to the Campaign in Support of the UN Norms: Commission on Human Rights Acknowledges Need to Strengthen Standards on Businesses' Human Rights Responsibilities
ESCR-Net
The UN Human Rights Norms for Business were adopted last August at the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Drawing upon existing internationally recognized standards of human rights, the Norms set out in a comprehensive way the key human rights responsibilities of companies. In doing so, they create a powerful tool for advocacy but at the same time provide a useful checklist for those companies keen to improve their human rights performance. Some companies have already showed willingness to “road test” the application of the UN Norms during their business operations.
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Commission Adopts Eight Resolutions On Economic, Social, Cultural Rights,
April 16, 2004 - UN Information Service
GENEVA, 16 April (UN Information Service) -- The Commission on Human Rights this morning adopted a resolution concerning racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, and eight resolutions related to economic, social and cultural rights.
State Department Report on Human Rights "Missing an Entry on the US," According to over 100 US Human Rights Groups
February 25, 2004 - US Human Rights Network
The State Department's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which was issued today, is considered by the US government to be a full and objective report on the current state of human rights in the world. However, many human rights organizations take issue with this claim.
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U.S. Report Criticizes Russia on Human Rights
February 26, 2004 - Robin Wright, Washington Post
The Bush administration bluntly criticized Russia yesterday for manipulating
regional and national elections, cracking down on the news media, and
prosecuting or threatening members of opposition groups -- a series of steps
that the administration said raised questions about Moscow's commitment to
the rule of law.
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A flap over foreign matter at the Supreme Court
March 11, 2004 - Tom Curry, MSNBC
WASHINGTON - Stepping into a battle between the liberal and conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican House members are protesting the court’s increasing use of foreign legal precedents in interpreting the Constitution.
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Protesters march on Yum headquarters in tomato dispute
February 28, 2004 - DAVID GOETZ, The Courier-Journal
Farm workers and their supporters staged a demonstration and march along eight miles of Louisville streets yesterday in their most elaborate protest yet against fast-food chain Taco Bell and its parent, Yum! Brands Inc.
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Global Anti-War Assembly calls for Global Resistance on March 20
January 19, 2004 - General Assembly of the Anti-War Movement
The General Assembly of the Global Anti-War Movement called on the world to fll the streets on March 20 to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq.
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Standing Up For Workers' Rights
February 13, 2004 - Stewart Acuff, Foreign Policy In Focus
"The boss said he would sell the company or burn it down before he would see a union at Sterling." To the cheers of a responsive Washington, D.C. audience on December 10, 2003, Sterling Laundry worker Evelyn Thomas vowed to continue the battle for the freedom to form a union at her workplace, in spite of fierce employer opposition.
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Schmeiser Case Heard Before Canada's Supreme Court
January 20, 2004 - Paul Elias
Lawyers for agribusiness titan Monsanto Co. drew pointed questions from the Canada Supreme Court on Tuesday in a dispute with a Saskatchewan canola grower that has become a cause for biotechnology opponents and proponents around the globe.
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FTAA Poses Danger to Indigenous People
November 19, 2003 - Oxfam America
The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the giant free-trade zone proposed for the entire hemisphere, will have a devastating effect on indigenous peoples, says economist Mamerto Perez of the Center for the Study of Development, Labor, and Agriculture (CEDLA) in Bolivia, a research organization partly supported by Oxfam for the last 10 years.
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The Defense of El Estor
May 16, 2003 - Oxfam America
In northern Guatemala, the intrusive operations of nickel mining companies are posing a serious threat to Mayan communities. In the face of increasing pressure to yield to their demands, one organization won’t give an inch.
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American Slave Wages
February 15, 2004 - by Cynthia Phoel, Oxfam America
On November 20, 2003, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. CIW members Julia Gabriel, Lucas Benítez, and Romeo Ramírez were honored for their leadership in fighting slavery and unjust working conditions for Florida farmworkers. This is the first time this award has gone to a US-based organization—recognizing major human rights violations right here in our own backyard.
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Indigenous Leader in Ecuador Attacked
February 3, 2004 - Oxfam America
Shots Fired at CONAIE President, Family Wounded in Quito
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World Bank Official Review Advises: Respect Human Rights, Pull Out of Coal and Oil Financing
December 2, 2003 - Oxfam America
Development & Environmental advocates praise report, challenge Bank to implement
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Judgement Reserved in Arms Deal Case
February 18, 2004 - Mail and Guardian
Judgement has been reserved in the Cape High Court matter where an NGO is
trying to overturn the government's decision to enter into the
multibillion-rand arms deal.
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Asian-Americans Note Issues Central to Them for Elections
February 13, 2004 - LYNETTE CLEMETSON, New York Times
Contending that the growing influence
of Asian-Americans, as well as issues that concern them, are being overlooked in an election year, a coalition of organizations that represent Asian-Americans announced on
Thursday a unified platform intended to increase politicians' involvement with the ethnic group.
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Migrant Rights at the World Social Forum: “We Are One!” -- Strengthening the Global Movement
January 20, 2004 - Colin Rajah, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
A special report for the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee
Rights direct from Mumbai, India.
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Disability Rights Promotion International Launches New Web Site
December 15, 2003 - Disability Rights Promotion International, Disability Rights Promotion International
Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI) launches its new web site: www.yorku.ca/drpi. DRPI is a collaborative project to build capacity to monitor the human rights situation of people with disabilities worldwide. The web site explains the history of the project and its current status, provides an introduction to a human rights approach to disability, and includes a brief overview of the United Nations human rights system.
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UN Meeting in South-Eastern Europe Aims to Eliminate Human Trafficking
December 12, 2003 - United Nations
With South-eastern Europe described by the United Nations anti-crime agency as a “high-transit” region for human trafficking, mostly in women and children for sexual exploitation, senior officials from 13 countries in the area will meet next week to launch a training scheme to help police and special investigators tackle the problem.
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Detained at the Whim of the President
December 10, 2003 - Deborah Pearlstein, International Herald Tribune
Op Ed on "enemy combatant" cases --arguing that the Supreme Court should not be misled by the government's recent actions in relation to Yaser Hamdi and the detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
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Digest This
November 1, 2003 - Wayne Roberts, Alternatives
Recognizing the right to food could usher in a new era of social and environmental gains.
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The Whole Enchilada
November 1, 2003 - Wayne Roberts, Alternatives
An editorial on food security and food sovereignty.
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Excerpts From the Massachusetts Ruling
November 19, 2003 - New York Times
Following are excerpts from the majority opinion by Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling, Goodridge & Others v. Department of Public Health and Another, that the prohibition against civil marriages for same-sex couples violates the Massachusetts Constitution.
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Human Rights: A Watershed Moment
November 1, 2003 - Priti Darooka and Carol Pollack, Ford Foundation
Ford Report on the ESCR-Net meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
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Migrant workers: The Plight of the Poor Farmer
November 10, 2003 - Richard Brand, Miami Herald
Many of Mexico's poorest have been forced to leave their homes and are now working on U.S. farms.
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Miami or Bust
October 27, 2003 - Naomi Klein, The Guardian
When Latin America's leaders gather in the US next month, they must oppose rampant free trade .
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World Bank Delays Pipeline Decision
October 29, 2003 - The Baku Ceyhan Campaign
Environment and human rights groups have welcomed an announcement by the
World Bank that it will delay its decision on a controversial Caspian oil
pipeline.
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Bias In The Bathroom: Case For Transgender Rights
October 27, 2003 - Christine Marie Hintze, City Limits Weekly
A groundbreaking lawsuit challenges assumptions about gender and demands fair treatment for all.
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Strange Fruit
October 1, 2003 - Matt Pacenza, The Village Voice
Florinda Lollo Martínez lost her job so your
bananas could stay cheap. And now she's so desperate to provide food for
her family that she's risking her life to grow corn on a former banana
plantation, even though thugs linked to her former employer, Fresh Del
Monte Produce, have been accused of murdering eight of her fellow
farmers in the past two years.
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Economic Globalization vs. Human Rights: Lessons From The Bolivian Water Revolt
April 30, 2003 - Jim Shultz
For more than half a century the world has been involved in the noble effort to establish human rights as a matter of international law. In accords such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and others, nations have agreed that our basic human dignities include not only civil and political protections (against torture, unfair jailings, and the like) but also economic, social and cultural rights. Among these are the right to food, shelter, health, education and, very clearly, the right to water.
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The War on Al-Jazeera
October 4, 2003 - Dima Tareq Tahboub, The Guardian
The US is determined to suppress the independent Arab media.
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A Beacon of Freedom Grows Dim
September 13, 2003 - James A. Goldston, The International Herald Tribune
The Bush administration's offensive to preserve Patriot Act counterterror legislation has plunged law reform advocates worldwide into despair.
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Suicide Mars WTO Talks
September 11, 2003 - CNN
A South Korean protester has killed himself during a clash with riot police on the first day of world trade talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun.
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Florida's Fields of Despair:
September 4, 2003 - Miami Herald
A multi-part series published in the Herald this week on farmworker exploitation in Florida.
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Cancun: Why You Should Care
May 22, 2003 - Paul Kingsnorth, The Ecologist
School dinners by McDonald’s. Corporations taking countries to court because their environmental regulations are ‘too tough’. The BBC sold to Rupert Murdoch. Paul Kingsnorth explains why we should be very worried by what is about to go on behind the closed doors of Cancun.
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Obituary: Sergio Vieira de Mello
August 19, 2003 - BBC News
Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN's special representative in Iraq who has been killed in Baghdad, was an experienced and widely respected diplomat.
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Kenyan Women Stage Rape Protest
August 14, 2003 - Reuters
Dozens of Kenyan women carrying children they say are the sons and daughters of British soldiers who raped them protested outside the British mission in Nairobi.
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Human rights and disability
July 1, 2003 - Amnesty International, Amnesty International
The second meeting of the UN Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities took place in New York on 16-27 June 2003. Amnesty International interviewed Bengt Lindqvist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Disability, to find out more about disability and human rights. Dr. Lindqvist discussed why disability has only recently been added to the human rights agenda and what mainstream human rights organizations can do to strengthen the rights of people with disabilities.
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WHO Working Paper Series
World Health Organization
WHO Health and Human Rights has launched today three working papers. This paper explores key dimensions of how health, human rights and the
environment intersect in the context of sustainable development.
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International Law on Migrants Rights Protection Enters Into Force
June 27, 2003 - Migrants Rights International, MRI
On 1 July 2003, the United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families will enter into force as an instrument of international law that will ensure protection and respect for the human rights of all migrants.
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ACLU Lauds Landmark Supreme Court Decisions ACLU Lauds Landmark Supreme Court Decisions Upholding University’s Affirmative Action Policies
June 23, 2003 - American Civil Liberties Union
NEW YORK--The American Civil Liberties Union today applauded the Supreme Court’s decisions today upholding the principle that public universities may continue to use affirmative action to ensure a diverse student body.
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Determined Law Resource Center continues to fight for justice
June 19, 2003 - Ron Seldon, Indian Country Today
Since 1978, the [Indian Law Resource Center] has been attacking injustice and pushing new standards for the treatment of indigenous peoples around the globe. Along the way, the Helena-based organization has gained an international reputation for its skillful navigation through ever-shifting diplomatic shoals, bulldog tenacity, and unwavering insistence that when it comes to human rights, the status quo is not good enough.
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The Indispensable Advocate
July 1, 2003 - Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect
With big-city machines gone, unions are the primary champions of America's new immigrants.
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Federal Appeals Court Authorizes Secret Arrests
June 19, 2003 - Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
A federal appeals court decision issued recently allows the government to withhold the names of non-citizens detained in the United States after September 11.
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ESCR-Net Inaugural Conference - Chiang Mai, Thailand
June 8, 2003 - International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCR-Net)
More than 350 human rights activists from around the world gathered in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to officially launch a new global network to promote human dignity and social justice through the advancement of economic, social and cultural human rights. Mary Robinson, Director of the Ethical Globalisation Initiative and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights gave a keynote address at this conference.
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European Health Ministers Call for Human Rights Dimension in Access to High-Quality Health Care
June 13, 2003 - Council of Europe
The Seventh Conference of European Health Ministers, meeting in Oslo on 12 and 13 June 2003, has called on the Council of Europe to intensify its work on the social, ethical and human rights dimensions of health care and related services. In a declaration adopted at the end of the two-day conference, on the theme of “Health, dignity and human rights”, the Ministers requested the Council of Europe to propose measures aimed at reducing inequalities in access to high-quality health care, both within and between countries.
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Council of Europe and WHO: Complementary Tools and Methods to Promote Health and Human Rights
June 12, 2003 - Council of Europe
Council of Europe and WHO leaders reaffirmed their
commitment in Oslo to strengthening co-operation, already well-established
in many fields. Dr Yves Charpak, Senior Policy Adviser at WHO's European
regional office in Copenhagen, thinks that the tools provided by his
organisation will help the Council of Europe and its member states to assess
how far health policies are consistent with human rights. For an Interview
with Yves Charpak, see link.
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G8 A Wash-Out Says Oxfam
June 2, 2003 - Oxfam International
Oxfam calls the G8 summit a washout - Oxfam declared the Evian G8 a washout.
Development campaigners said they felt let down by the G8's failure to
deliver on its promises to Africa. The leaders' meeting failed to tackle
Africa's pressing problems like US and EU dumping of subsidized farm produce
which is destroying the livelihoods of millions of African farmers.
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Justice Department Report Confirms Abuses Against Post 9-11 Detainees
June 2, 2003 - Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
LCHR applauded the report released on June 2, noting that it reflects many of the Lawyers Committee’s findings on injustices suffered by those detained in the U.S. after 9-11.
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Accountability for Past Abuses in Iraq
May 21, 2003 - Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
LCHR emphasizes the importance of ensuring justice for atrocities committed by the former Iraqi government. The final Security Council resolution on Iraq must call for a commission of experts to investigate crimes and make recommendations for effective prosecutions.
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Alone and Ashamed
May 16, 2003 - Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
We in journalism tend to write about scoundrels, but today let me
instead hail a saint for our age.
Dr. Catherine Hamlin, 79, is an Australian gynecologist who has spent
the last 44 years in Addis Ababa, quietly toiling in impossible
conditions to achieve the unimaginable. She has helped 24,000 women
overcome obstetric fistulas, a condition almost unknown in the West but
indescribably hideous for millions of sufferers in the poorest countries
in the world.
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No Way Out
January 20, 2003 - Nicholas Stein, Fortune Magazine
"No Way Out" exposes the growing practice of debt bondage of migrant
workers who leave their home countries to work in overseas factories. Verité pitched this story to Fortune and provided background and all of the contacts journalist Nicholas Stein used to research the story. We hosted him in Asia for a week of meetings with our colleagues and partners there.
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U'wa Vow To Resist Oil Discovery on Sacred Land
May 7, 2003
U'wa Vow To Resist Oil Discovery on Sacred Land
Groups Denounce Use of US Tax Dollars for Oil Drilling in Colombia
After a successful decade long struggle to keep oil exploitation off of their sacred homeland, the 7,000 member U'wa indigenous community from the remote cloud forests of northeastern Colombia are vowing to continue their peaceful opposition to oil drilling on their land in light of this week's announcement by Colombia's state oil company-Ecopetrol-that preliminary results from a test well indicated recoverable amounts of crude.
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A Wave of Drug Killings Is Linked to Thai Police
April 8, 2003 - Seth Mydans, New York Times
An extraordinary campaign of government-approved killings is under way in Thailand - a crackdown on drug dealers that has taken as many as 2,000 lives over the past two months, an average of 30 a day.
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US Detains Children at Guantanamo Bay
April 23, 2003 - Guardian Umlimited
The US military has admitted that children aged 16 years and younger
are among the detainees being interrogated at its prison camp in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a US military
spokesman, yesterday said all the teenagers being held were "captured
as active combatants against US forces", and described them as "enemy
combatants".
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Prosecutor Elected for International Criminal Court
April 21, 2003 - Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
With today’s election of Dr. Luis Moreno Ocampo as its Prosecutor, the International Criminal Court moved one step closer to becoming a functioning reality. A prominent Argentine lawyer, Ocampo built his career prosecuting members of the military junta following Argentina’s “dirty war” in the 1980’s. Under his leadership, the prosecutorial team received complaints of thousands of human rights abuses included kidnapping, torture, and disappearances.
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U.S. Media Applaud Bombing of Iraqi TV
March 27, 2003 - Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
When Iraqi TV offices in Baghdad were hit by a U.S missile strike on March
25, the targeting of media was strongly criticized by press and human rights groups. The general secretary of the International Federation of
Journalists, Aidan White, suggested that "there should be a clear
international investigation into whether or not this bombing violates the
Geneva Conventions." White told Reuters (3/26/03), "Once again, we see
military and political commanders from the democratic world targeting a
television network simply because they don't like the message it gives out."
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'Trial of the Century' Enthralls Mozambique
January 8, 2003 - Rachel L. Swarns, New York Times
Every morning, a tale of assassins and money launderers, corrupt prosecutors and looted millions transfixes this impoverished nation. The riveting drama stars the president's son as the evil mastermind behind the murder of a crusading journalist who came too close to the truth.
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US Court Decision On Guantanamo Detainees Has Serious Implications
March 12, 2003 - United Nations Press Release
The effects of the ruling by an American court that Guantanamo Bay
detainees cannot invoke the jurisdiction of United States courts because the territory is not part of the country "can set a dangerous
precedent", an expert of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
said today.
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Operation Liberty Shield Targets Refugees for Detention
March 19, 2003 - Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
With its new plan “Operation Liberty Shield,” the Department of Homeland Security announced that it will detain all asylum applicants who seek refuge from a group of countries, a list that will include Iraq, as well as other refugee-producing countries such as Iran, Sudan and Somalia. “Operation Liberty Shield is targeting the very people who have stood up to, and in some cases been persecuted and tortured by, the same regimes that the U.S. has singled out for condemnation,” said Eleanor Acer, Director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Right’s Asylum program.
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Issue Focus: The Human Right to Water
February 1, 2003 - Julian Liu, ESCR Net-Secretariat, Center for Economic and Social Rights
On 26 November, 2002 the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reaffirmed that water is a fundamental right of all human beings in its General Comment No.15, “The Right to Water.”
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World Criminal Court Launched
March 11, 2003 - Reuters
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands (Reuters) -- The first global criminal court holds its inaugural session on Tuesday when judges are sworn in, but the United States will show its hostility to the tribunal by staying away.
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The 3rd World Water Forum: A Civil Society Backgrounder
Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians
From March 16-22 of this year, an estimated 8,000 people from all over the world will gather in Kyoto, Japan, to attend the 3rd World Water Forum. There, decisions will be made about the future of the world's freshwater resources that will affect every living being on the planet. This memo is offered as a brief history of the events and players instrumental in the lead-up to this forum and is a critique of the private sector interests that have developed around the control of water.
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The Untold Housing Rights Violations of War
February 1, 2003 - Scott Leckie, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions
As US military build-up in
Iraq mounts, COHRE's director Scott Leckie highlighted the housing rights
violations which results from war. He is reminding us that "* destroying
civilian homes constitutes a war crime."
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Brazen Bosses
February 1, 2003 - Anne-Marie Cusac, The Progressive
The most basic labor right--the right to organize a union--does not exist in
actual fact in many workplaces across the country. During industrialization,
some labor activists gave their lives so workers could join unions and get
better pay and safer working conditions.
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Proposed Anti-Terror Legislation Would Amass Further Executive Branch Power
February 17, 2003 - Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
Draft anti-terrorism legislation currently being circulated by the Ashcroft Justice Department includes many provisions that would endanger core civil liberties and fundamentally alter the relationship between the executive branch and the courts. The draft proposal, called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, builds on the USA PATRIOT Act, which was enacted in October 2001.
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Belgian Ruling Key Precedent for Human Rights Green-lights Case against ex-Chad Dictator
February 13, 2003 - Human Rights Watch
The Belgian Supreme Court decision
permitting an inquiry into the 1982 massacre of civilians in the
Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla is a landmark step for
international law, Human Rights Watch said today. The decision will also
allow a number of other cases pending in Belgium to move forward, including
that of former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré.
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Ends, Means and Barbarity
January 11, 2003 - The Economist
Torture has been outlawed in all circumstances everywhere. But global
terrorism may be leading America to bend the rules.
The reports have been emerging only slowly, but they are chilling. American
intelligence agents have been torturing terrorist suspects, or engaging in
practices pretty close to torture. They have also been handing over suspects to
countries, such as Egypt, whose intelligence agencies have a reputation for brutality.
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Senior Groups Begin Boycott of Drug Maker
February 9, 2003 - Catherine Saillant, Los Angeles Times
With a battle cry of "Tums down!" senior citizens groups have started a boycott of drug giant GlaxoSmithKline, after the company cut supplies to Canadian pharmacies that sell its drugs to Americans on the Internet at bargain prices.
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Drug Company Announces Generics for HIV/AIDS Treatment
January 25, 2003 - IPS Correspondent in Davos
Leading drugs manufacturer Pharmacia Corporation has announced licensing to produce generic versions of its anti-retroviral medicine Rescriptor for use in developing countries that are hard hit by HIV/AIDS, but delegates at the World Economic Forum and health activists say other drugs companies must follow this precedent if the pandemic is to be abated.
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Coalition of Top Doctors and Nurses Calls on Bush to Take Lead on Global AIDS Fight
November 22, 2002 - Physicians for Human Rights
As the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria holds its second meeting in Geneva this week, the Health Action AIDS Campaign of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) appeals to President Bush to support and help fully fund the next round of grant proposals from HIV/AIDS burdened countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. PHR's Health Action AIDS Campaign is composed of the leading doctors, nurses, and public health experts in the United States involved in HIV/AIDS action at home and abroad.
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The New Diplomacy
December 1, 2002 - David Davenport
The author's description of how NGOs have modified, adapted and, in-part, driven a wave of "new diplomacy" should be encouraging to multilateral advocacy oriented NGOs. He describes how
this new way of working outside of the traditional diplomatic political box underpinned the completion and ultimate entering into force of the Treaty to Ban Land Mines ("Ottawa Convention") and the International Criminal Court ("Rome Statute"). Further, that it reflects how small and mid sized states and civil society organizations (NGOs) can collectively drive progressive topics of human concern to a height of achieving international force without the absolute consent of the world's most powerful nations - the United States, Russia, China and India.
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Human Rights: Celebration and Concern
December 10, 2002 - John Gershman, Foreign Policy In Focus
Fifty-four years ago, international respect for human rights was just an idea. Today, international support for human rights is cause for both concern and celebration.
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Americas: Security for All Means Human Rights for All
November 19, 2002 - Amnesty International
Real security can only be achieved through full respect for the human rights of all, Amnesty International warned today as Ministers of Defence from all over the American continent meet in Santiago, Chile, to discuss regional security.
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Central American Free Trade Agreement: LCHR Concerned about Labor Rights Record of Participating Countries
November 19, 2002 - Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights urged U.S. officials to ensure that basic workers rights protection were included in a soon-to-be-negotiated Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) at a hearing today in the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
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The Chinese working class: fiction and reality
November 25, 2002 - Tim Pringle, Human Rights in China
"Myth and misinformation about modern China must surely count as the most consistent obstacles to those who want to understand the forces at play in the country. Examples from the past and present abound: 'China is a totalitarian monolith where any form of dissent is ruthlessly crushed' or 'China is a paradise where all citizens are equal and conflict between classes has been eradicated.' … Perhaps nowhere is the confusion more rife than in the discourse concerning the relationship between the Chinese State and the working class."
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BIGGEST BULLY ON THE BLOCK...
November 15, 2002 - Action Canada for Population and Development
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has intensified its battle against abortion rights worldwide by stating that it no longer could support a landmark international agreement that established reproductive health care as a means to curb population growth.
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Adoption of the Human Right to Water
November 27, 2002 - UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights today adopted the General Comment on the right to water referring to article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The General Comment states that: "The human right to drinking water is fundamental for life and health. Sufficient and safe drinking water is a precondition for the realization of all human rights."
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UN Officials Move To Address Human Rights Violations Based On Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity
June 5, 2001 - International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)
In a historic step, the United Nations' human rights mechanisms moved last week to increase their work on issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. In a letter from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, six Independent Experts -- high level individuals appointed by the UN to investigate patterns of human rights abuse -- reached out to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. They urged activists and groups worldwide to contact them about human rights violations.
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Children's socio-economic rights [in South Africa]: Do they have a right to special protection?
September 1, 2002 - Paula Proudlock, ESR Review
While the South African government has clearly indicated in various policy documents and international forums that it supports the call for 'children first', the majority of children in South Africa are not being provided with their basic needs: food, water, social security, shelter, health care services and social services. It is in this context that clarity is needed from the Constitutional Court on the nature and scope of the obligations imposed on the State by s 28(1)(c).
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Housing Rights approach to tackle homelessness advocated
February 22, 2001 - Chakravarthi Raghavan, Thirld Work Network
Geneva -- The housing and living conditions across the world are deteriorating, with some 100 million now estimated to be without shelter, according to a report by a Special Rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Commission for its 57th session here in Geneva from 19 March.
Some 30 to 70 million children are living on the streets worldwide, and further exacerbating the situation is the trend towards ever more rapid urbanisation, particularly in Africa and South-East Asia, and the growing poverty in countries with a predominantly rural population, the preliminary report by Mr. Miloon Kothari, according to the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing.
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Race and Incarceration in the United States
February 27, 2002 - Human Rights Watch, HRW Press Backgrounder
In this briefing, we present new figures documenting racial disparities state-by-state in the incarceration of African Americans and Latinos.1 We hope they will help state residents and public officials to understand their state-specific incarceration patterns and practices.
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Roma Rights: A Challenge for EU Members Old and New
April 1, 2002 - James Goldston, Foreign Affairs
Excerpt: "Europe's accelerating process of political integration offers the prospect of improved legal protection for the Roma and other minorities, through human rights laws and strict conditions imposed on countries eager to join the European Union. And accession may also lead the EU's older members to look inward and address their own shortcomings in this area."
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OSCE Baku conference stresses role of religions in preventing terrorism
October 11, 2002 - Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Press Release
BAKU, 11 October 2002 – An international OSCE conference on religious freedom and combating terrorism, which ended in Baku today, stressed the important role religions and beliefs can play in preventing terrorism and conflict. Participants also called on states to ensure religious freedom, and to direct measures to combat terrorism to the individual perpetrators of terrorist acts only and not against the national, ethnic or religious community they belong to.
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No Religious Freedom in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
August 22, 2002 - Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director, HRW, Europe and Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch
New York - The Bush administration must not repeat its mistake of failing to designate Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan "countries of particular concern" for religious freedom, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, the president can designate countries whose governments engage in serious violations of religious freedom as countries of particular concern. The law then offers the president a menu of options for dealing with such countries, ranging from private demarches to limiting certain kinds of assistance, through full sanctions. Last year, the Bush administration failed to designate either Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan as countries of particular concern. A decision on the two countries' designation is expected from the U.S. administration in the coming weeks.
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Overview of Self-Determination Issues in Africa
June 4, 2002 - Thomas Turner, Foreign Policy in Focus
Africa includes a large number of states, most of them "artificial" in that they result from colonial partition. The boundaries of these states generally were drawn by the Europeans to suit their own purposes and typically divide indigenous cultural communities.
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Indonesia: An Archipelago of Self-Determination and Communal Conflicts
October 1, 2002 - John Gershman, Foreign Policy in Focus
"... In addition to conflicts over democratization and class conflict, there are two major types of violent conflicts in Indonesia: Self determination conflicts and Communal conflicts. Self-determination conflicts involve conflicts where major political organizations raise demands for independence or significant autonomy. These include Aceh, West Papua and, previously, East Timor."
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Democratic Development 1990-2000: An Overview
April 1, 2002 - Nancy Thede, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development
The period from the mid-1980s to 2000 has seen a major "wave" of democratic transitions in the South and in the former Soviet Union. (2) A sort of euphoria enveloped all of us in the wake of that wave – the actors, the analysts, the policy-makers, the funders alike. Although the actors directly involved in transitions and those institutions dedicated to supporting them from the outside were aware that democratization would not be solely a question of elections, we were ill-prepared for the multiplicity of obstacles that arose in the course of the evolution of new democracies.
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Special Rapporteur Stresses Importance of Link Between Combating Racism and Promoting Dialogue, as Third Committee Begins Debate on Racial Discrimination
October 23, 2002 - United Nations
The newly confirmed Special Rapporteur on measures to Combat Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, this morning outlined for the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, Cultural) his vision for carrying his mandate forward –- a comprehensive and holistic strategy to combat prejudice and discrimination in the spirit of the Durban World Conference against Racism and its outcome.
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Bus tour campaigns for right to work and living wage
August 26, 2002 - The Oakland Tribune
ETHEL LONG-SCOTT, director of Women's Economic Agenda Project (WEAP), says America is at the beginning of an economic movement for the rights of poor and working-class citizens.
"What we are focusing on now is the concept of economic human rights, because most Americans don't have a concept of economic human rights. We have a concept of civil rights. This century we have to flush it out and say people have to have economic human rights."
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Working for women's human rights and gender equality
UN, UNHCHR
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action reaffirmed that the human rights of women and the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights and established a number of specific strategic objectives to ensure that women enjoy their full human rights. The Vienna Declaration also set as a priority for Governments and the United Nations the achievement of full and equal enjoyment by women of all human rights, full participation by women as both agents and beneficiaries of development, and integration of human rights into the mainstream of United Nations system-wide action. It is clear that the practical realization of those objectives presents a very great challenge today and for the years ahead.
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As American Laborers Are Honored Around the Country, It Is Still Legal in 38 States to Fire Gays and Lesbians Based on Sexual Orientation
August 26, 2002 - Human Rights Campaign, Press Release
WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign announced today its "Labor Day 2002: Equality Works!" campaign, a targeted effort to draw attention to the lack of basic workplace protection for gay men and lesbians. Currently, in 38 states, it is still legal to fire a gay or lesbian employee based solely on their sexual orientation.
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The EU's Human rights & Democratisation Policy: Election Assistance & Observation
November 25, 2002 - European Commission
During the last decade the process of democratisation has manifested itself in many countries by the holding of multiparty elections for the first time. In some parts of the world, however, there have been clear reversals for democracy as well as dramatic and massive violations of human rights. Nevertheless democracy remains a universally valid system of governance, albeit one which needs to be backed up by constitutionally guaranteed rights so as to prevent apparently democratic elections from giving rise to ‘illiberal democracy’. As Fareed Zakaria notes: "Democracy without constitutional liberalism is not simply inadequate, but dangerous, bringing with it the erosion of liberty, the abuse of power, ethnic divisions, and even war"1.
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UN Report says Democracy losing Ground
July 24, 2002 - United Nations Radio
UN report warns that democracy is losing ground. The report by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) says that although scores of countries took steps towards democracy during the past two decades, progress in many has stalled and some are slipping back to authoritarian rule putting human development at risk. The Human Development report says while 140 of the world's countries hold multi-party elections, just over 80 of them are fully democratic, boasting such institutions as a free press and an independent judiciary.
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Prisoners seek right to vote
March 22, 2001 - Alan Travis, Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Three prisoners yesterday launched a high court battle for the right to take part in elections in a test case which could end in MPs being expected to court the votes of 52,000 convicted inmates in England and Wales.
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Union members win equal rights
July 2, 2002 - BBC News
Employers in the UK are unlawfully allowed to discriminate against workers who want to join a union, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.
The court found in favour of a journalist and a group of dock workers who were denied pay rises after they refused to sign personal contracts.
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Institutionalized exclusion: The tenuous legal status of internal migrants
November 6, 2002 - Human Rights in China
The massive rural-to-urban migrations that have occurred in China during the reform era - estimates of the size of the "floating population" of migrants has ranged between 40 and 200 million people - have led some commentators to claim that the residence registration (hukou) system is no longer operational. The corollary of this is the idea that migrants who settle in China's cities will be eligible for the same benefits and entitlements as urban residents. According to this view, the controls over migration envisaged by the hukou system are much like the ideology of communism in present day China: something to which lip service is paid while the reality is entirely contrary.
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LAND FOR THOSE WHO WORK IT, NOT JUST FOR THOSE WHO CAN BUY IT:NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF WORLD BANK LAND POLICIES
April 1, 2002 - Food First
Some fifty members of peasant, research, environmental, religious, and human rights organizations met in Washington, DC from April 15 to 17 to analyze the impacts of World Bank land policies on their communities, under the slogan "Land for those who work it, not just for those who can buy it."
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No trade off between human rights and security: Amnesty International outlines human rights violations in 152 countries
October 10, 2002 - Amnesty International, Press Release
The world has undoubtedly changed radically since 11 September. Yet many things remain the same: a disregard for human life and human dignity, as well as for economic, cultural and social rights; an escalation of old and festering situations such as the Middle East, Afghanistan and Colombia, said Amnesty International as it launched its Report 2002 on human rights in the world during 2001.
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UK 'cynical abuse' of human rights
November 22, 2002 - Clare Dyer, legal correspondent, Guardian Unlimited
Helena Kennedy QC, the Labour peer and human rights lawyer, last night accused the government of a "cynical act of coalition" with the US in opting out of the right to liberty guaranteed by the European convention on human rights to allow it to hold foreign terrorist suspects without trial.
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Bush Administration Demands Impunity Agreements
November 14, 2002 - The Campaign to End Genocide
The Bush Administration is currently pressuring every nation to sign a bilateral agreement that would prevent the surrender of any U.S. citizen (or anyone who has ever worked for the U.S. military, including contractors) from the jurisdiction of the ICC, which covers the worst crimes known to humanity.
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PHR Statement on Mental Disability Rights
June 12, 2002 - Physicians for Human Rights
The international human rights community has become expert over the years in documenting violations of the laws of war, in affirming the rights of prisoners and detainees, in monitoring discrimination against women and ethnic minorities, and in appealing for protection from torture and inhumane treatment. But discrimination against persons with disabilities and gross abuses against the most vulnerable among them - adults and children housed in state institutions - has largely escaped the notice of the human rights community.
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ACLU Asks Appeals Court to Reconsider Ruling Upholding Closed Hearings in Sept. 11 Immigration Cases
November 22, 2002 - ACLU
NEW YORK -- The American Civil Liberties Union today asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a ruling that immigration hearings involving people detained after Sept. 11 may be unilaterally closed by the government without the input of a court.
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In First-Ever Ruling, Secret Appeals Court Allows Expanded Government Spying on U.S. Citizens
November 18, 2002 - ACLU
WASHINGTON - Ruling for the first time in its history, the ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review today gave the green light to a Justice Department bid to broadly expand its powers to spy on U.S. citizens.
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Spain: Government must act against torture and ill-treatment
November 20, 2002 - Amnesty International
Amnesty International today called on the Spanish government to take immediate action to implement the recommendations of the (UN) Committee against Torture, which called on the Spanish authorities to take action to remove conditions facilitating torture and ill-treatment, to act against racism or xenophobia, and to investigate promptly and impartially all reports of torture.
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Non-Discrimination and Equality in the Cities: Applying International Human Rights and Housing Rights Standards
November 1, 2002 - Bret Thiele and Mayra Gómez, Human Rights Tribune
Housing policy is an essential component of urban development and governance, and a rights-based approach is one important means by which to guarantee that housing policies are not only non-discriminatory but actually ensure equality. In an era of economic globalization, a rights-based approach to housing is important for a number of reasons.
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Hunger and homelessness related, says Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing in statement to World Food Summit
June 12, 2002 - United Nations, Press Release
"Being homeless or surviving in inadequate and insecure housing including lack of secure tenure has a direct bearing on your ability to feed yourself and to gain food security", said Mr. Kothari, who was appointed by the Commission on Human Rights in September 2000 to report on the status of realization of housing rights across the world. At its recent session of in Geneva in April 2002, the Commission encouraged him to bring the issue of housing to the attention of global conference reviews, including the Rome Summit.
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HOMELESS– Six Stories, Six Cities, Six Lives
November 23, 2002 - Australasian Housing Information Network
This website tells the stories of six homeless people, and how they survive without a home, money or support. There are stories from Sydney, Jakarta, New Delhi, New York, Tokyo and London. Cross time zones to experience one homeless day with them, around the clock, around the world.
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Yokohama 2001: A Second Look at the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
November 1, 2002 - Ron O’Grady, Human Rights Tribune
At long last, the world community is taking the issue of child sex abuse seriously. That is the most encouraging message I take from the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Yokohama, Japan from 17 to 20 December 2001.
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Cells for Sale: Prison Privatization and Human Rights
November 1, 2002 - Allison Campbell, Human Rights Tribune
Over 100,000 people in the United States are incarcerated in prisons owned and operated by private corporations. This statistic represents the collision and consolidation of the massive, two-decade expansion of a prison system that held over 2.1 million people behind bars by the year 2000, and a rising neo-liberal agenda of trade liberalization, increased focus on corporate profit and reduced public involvement in the provision of social services. This combination has found its form in privatized prisons and has proven to be an extremely problematic and dangerous mix.
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Housing Rights and Forced Evictions in Serbia
May 8, 2002 - Branimir Pleše, Roma Rights
Zoran Radièeviæ, Æazim Kovaèeviæ, … and Svetislav Stojanoviæ are all Roma and were all, together with their families, as of March 20, 2002, living in an illegal, predominantly Romani settlement [in] Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro. They have been housed in this settlement for the last 15 years and have in the meantime invested considerable time and their limited financial resources into making their lives bearable. … This will be the first time in Europe that Romani plaintiffs will be relying on self-executing international standards before a domestic court in a forced evictions case.
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World Summit on Sustainable Development - Human Rights must be Guiding Principle
August 6, 2002 - Rights and Democracy, Press Release
MONTREAL - Human rights should be a central principle for all new policies on world sustainable development, Rights & Democracy has told the Canadian government as the delegation prepares for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Although international human rights law constitutes a well accepted framework for policies aiming to significantly reduce poverty by 2015, the Canadian organization notes that the draft political declaration contains no reference to human rights.
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Committee against Torture concludes twenty-ninth session
November 22, 2002 - United Nations, Press Release
The Committee against Torture concluded today an autumn two-week session during which it reviewed reports of Spain, Egypt, Estonia, Cyprus and Venezuela on efforts to comply with the Convention against Torture.
In addition to submitting reports, these Governments sent delegations before the panel of 10 independent Experts to answer questions. The countries are among the 131 States parties to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
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Amerindian Researcher Brings Grassroots Views on Mining to Fore
November 1, 2002 - Colin Campbell, International Development Research Centre
In Guyana and Colombia, as in most Latin American countries, mining has dramatically increased over the past two decades. But from the contamination of healthy rivers to the lawless atmosphere of mining towns, few have felt the ill effects of mining more than these countries’ Indigenous peoples.
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The Human Face of Climate Change
November 4, 2002 - CorpWatch
New Delhi -- The effects of climate change are felt hardest in a country like India -- especially India. India's large rural population is dependent on the cycles of the seasons. Fishworkers who earn their living from the rivers and seas, farmers who rely on seasonal monsoons, and a large and varied indigenous population that lives in harsh climatic regions including mountains, deserts and river deltas, all make India especially susceptible to a changing climate. This year alone, India simultaneously experienced massive floods killing thousands in the east, and heat and drought in the west. Recently, 10 children died from starvation in Rajasthan due to drought.
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Guarani-Kaiowá of Brazil win land rights
November 13, 2002
The Guarani-Kaiowá Indians of Cerro Marangatu in Brazil have won back their land after 50 years. Last week, Brazil's Minister of Justice signed a bill for the demarcation of 9,300 hectares of land, covering the Cerro Marangatu area, stolen from the Guarani-Kaiowá by ranchers in the 1950s.
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Pakistan Ordinances Restrict Freedom of Expression
November 20, 2002
Three Ordinances recently promulgated by the President of Pakistan will exert a significant chilling effect on freedom of expression in Pakistan. The three – the Press Council Ordinance, Registration Ordinance and Defamation Ordinance –not only restrict freedom of expression also but undermine the process of democratic transition. Nothing about them justifies the urgent procedure invoked by the President and, should new rules in these areas be deemed necessary, this should have been left to the new Parliament.
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Right to Know
November 1, 2002 - Article 19
Information is the oxygen of democracy. If people do not know what is happening in their society, if the actions of those who rule them are hidden, then they cannot take a meaningful part in the affairs of that society. Information is not just a necessity for people - it is an essential part of good government. Bad government needs secrecy to survive. It allows inefficiency, wastefulness and corruption to thrive. As Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist has observed, there has never been a substantial famine in a country with a democratic form of government and a relatively free press. Information allows people to scrutinise the actions of a government and is the basis for proper, informed debate of those actions.
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Occidental Announces Plans to Leave U’Wa Land
May 3, 2002 - Drillbits & Tailings
At its annual shareholder meeting today, Occidental Petroleum announced its plans to return to the Colombian government its controversial Siriri oil block (formally Samore), located on the traditional territory of the U’wa people. This follows a nearly decade-long peaceful campaign by the U’wa to halt the oil project.
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Zimbabwe: Abuses Plague Land Reform Land Issues at the Heart of Political Crisis
March 8, 2002 - Human Rights Watch
The “fast track” land reform program in Zimbabwe has been accompanied by significant human rights abuses that harm the very people it was designed to assist, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released on the eve of Zimbabwe’s elections.
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Dreaming Ahead: Immigrant Rights in the Post-Durban, Post-9/11 Era
Arnoldo García
Worldwide some 150 million migrants systematically endure racist and xenophobic abuse at the hands of governments and citizens in countries not their own. Migrants and refugees are compelled to cross international borders fleeing political persecution, terrorism, ethnic and racial strife, and unsustainable economic development. The root causes of involuntary migration lie in globalization – socio-economic and political restructuring that maximizes corporate investments and profits at the expense of communities. Now that the U.S. “war against terrorism” has gone global, 9/11 also promises to swell the ranks of migrants and refugees.
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