Posts with the tag human rights

Update: Global Violence Against Women

cgroff — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:08:04 EDT

In an encouraging trend, the U.S. Congress is continuing to provide a forum for discussion about international violence against women. Paralleling the Senate hearing that was featured in a CP article last week, the House also held a hearing on Wednesday surrounding the pending re-introduction of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA).

The bill was first introduced last year in the Senate by then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), but never passed. It is time for our leaders to finally address the horrific state of global women's rights. Hopefully the House hearing signifies that the government is getting serious about the vital role they can play in solving this widespread tragedy.

UNL Students Receive Grant for Anti-Genocide Activism

pdelatorre — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:06:54 EST

Divest Nebraska, a student organization at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), was recently awarded a grant of $400 from the non-profit Campus Progress for their campaign to convince Nebraska lawmakers to divest from targeted companies. Targeted companies are those companies operating in Sudan that provide few to no benefits to Sudanese citizens and generate revenue used by the Sudanese government to fund genocide.

Torture

Ned Resnikoff — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:34:58 EDT

(Crossposted at Veritosity.com)

Over at the Washington Monthly blog, I see that this month's issue is all about torture. And why torture is bad.

Long Island couple found guilty of slavery

ashwini — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:27:11 EST

I previously posted on this story this past spring—a wealthy Indian couple in Muttontown, Long Island were accused of keeping their domestic workers enslaved, and subjecting them to physical and psychological abuse. The story broke when workers, both middle-aged women from Indonesia, escaped and a neighbor called 911.

Yesterday, the Sabhnani couple of Long Island was found guilty of forced labor and involuntary servitude, among other counts, and could be sentenced to up to 40 years.

Myanmar is looking more and more like North Korea and Sudan

Jenny Odegard — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:50:16 EDT

As the conflict in Myanmar continues to develop, it's clear that the country's government is doing their best to close off their actions from the outside world.

From the Reuters’s coverage:

I'm About To Break Jesse Singal's Heart...

Dorna Mohaghegh — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:14:11 EDT

Dearest Jesse,

I hate to break it to ya, but it seems your love affair with a particular Youtube video that you blogged about earlier in the summer is about to end.

An Invisible Suffering: Domestic Workers and Forced Labor

ashwini — Fri, 18 May 2007 11:49:39 EDT

A South Asian Long Island couple worth millions of dollars is accused of torturing and keeping enslaved their two Indonesian domestic workers for several years. A full story as well as photographic evidence of what the workers endured (some of these pictures may be disturbing) can be found here.

The case speaks to the larger issue of forced labor and abuse that countless domestic workers throughout the world face. These workers are overwhelmingly women, come from primarily Asian, African, Latin American and Caribbean countries, and have families who are dependent on their meager incomes and immigration status. The abuse that many of the women face is horrific beyond imagination—physical, sexual and emotional exploitation, torture, and denial of food, water, hygiene and adequate amounts of rest, among others. Human Rights Watch released a report in 2006 that not only outlines the plight of exploited domestic workers, but also condemns governments for their failure to protect domestic workers from abuse and slavery. “Most countries around the world, however, exclude domestic work from their labor codes or provide for lesser rights. Labor legislation must be complemented by criminal laws allowing for successful prosecution of offenses such as physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, forced labor, forced confinement, and trafficking in persons,” according to HRW. Additionally, this issue has a decidedly gendered aspect to it: “Millions of women and girls turn to domestic work as one of the few economic opportunities available to them,” said [Human Rights Watch researcher Nisha] Varia. “Abuses often take place in private homes and are totally hidden from the public eye.”

The Ground Truth screening with CP and AU.

ODUMarc — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:13:25 EDT

On Monday, April 23, Campus Progress and American University will join forces on the AU campus to show the screening of "The Ground Truth," to highlight the true costs of the war in Iraq.

It's also supported by the United Methodist Chaplaincy.

The idea is that if we highlight the truths about the war in Iraq, and its cost and effects, more people would take a stand on the war. This is an effective way to raise conciousness about the war, as well as mobilize and motivate student activists to act and takea a standa against the war.

The "Wear Some Black" campaign was started by Emily Willard at American University. The idea behind that is to wear a button that says, "Wear Some Black Until the Troops Are Back," (or any sort of black at all) as a way to get the conversations moving and started about the deep wounds of war, its fiscal and human tolls.

A great deal of other schools have jumped on board with this, to include Old Dominion University. While the College Democrats here are the leaders in putting this together, some College Republicans members have also shown interest in making this a bi-partisan campaign.

The vision for this is to reach across party lines and work toward a dialogue and open-and-honest discussion about the Iraq war. It is my hope that every school in America will be on board with this campaign. If such anti-war sentiments change America's visions in the '60s, such changes are also possible now.

Anyhow, you're invited to this event. If you're interested in "Wear Some Black" campaign, we also need you.

The link to the facebook invitation is below. If you don't have facebook, shoot its organizer, Emily Willard, an e-mail at emily.willard@american.edu

Government accountability? What's that?

ashwini — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:27:53 EDT

It is a sad, sad day. Especially for us at the ACLU offices.

Are we to believe our government officials are completely exempt from being held accountable for their actions?

The case brought by survivors of torture, against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been dismissed by a US District judge. The victims were tortured in secret prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lawsuit alleged that Rumsfeld and other top military officials were aware of the torture and abuse, but ignored the warnings, and instead actually authorized more "extreme" interrogation techniques.

"No matter how appealing it might seem to use the courts to correct allegations of severe abuses of power, Hogan wrote, government officials are immune from such lawsuits. Additionally, foreigners held overseas are not normally afforded U.S. constitutional rights."

It's just depressing.

Indian guest workers protesting conditions, captivity

ashwini — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:55:55 EDT

In Pascagoula, Mississippi, Signal International hired hundreds of guest laborers in India, promising them greencards and permanent residency, along with well-paying jobs. Many of the workers spent their life savings or even sold their houses to pay the fee for H2-B visas, but upon arriving here, were only given the temporary visas, paid half of what they were promised, and found their living conditions squalid.

About a week ago, company representatives and armed security guards raided the workers’ camp, took 6 workers, and locked them in a room, saying they would be deported to India. One of the workers, Sabu Lal, even slit his wrists hoping that his self-mutilation would keep him from deportation. He was recently interviewed on Democracy Now:

“How I can go back to India? There is nothing. My family is waiting for me to fulfill their wishes by earning something from America. They are dreaming to come to America. These guys cheated me. From India, for ’til I come here, they cheated me, and family is cheated…They are treating us like slaves. And whenever we making some comments, they are saying that ‘Just shut your mouth.’”

The Ghosts of Abu Grahib

ashwini — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:48:27 EDT

Last night, I went to a special screening of Ghosts of Abu Grahib, a new documentary that exposes the abuse and torture of detainees at the notorious Abu Grahib prison in Iraq. The film makes the argument that, unlike what the military spin team would like us to think, the abuse was not caused by “a few bad apples” in the mix. Rather, “extreme” interrogation methods—a.k.a. torture—was sanctioned and ordered by the highest officials, leading back to the Secretary of Defense and the White House.

Ghosts of Abu Grahib was compelling because it interviewed almost all of the soliders who were indicted and convicted of abusing the detainees at Abu Grahib. These soldiers were almost all low-ranking and young, who made the claim that in fact they were following orders in the chain of command. The only high-ranking official to be convicted was Col. Janis Karpinski, who has since become a crusader for the treatment of female soldiers in the military (as was mentioned in the excellent Salon expose last week). The only offender who was not interviewed was Charles Graner, the supposed instigator of the majority of the violence—who was sentenced to 10 years in prison (the others received sentences between 6 months and 1 year for their participation).

Filmmaker Rory Kennedy opens the documentary with footage from the infamous experiment conducted in the 1960s, “Obedience.” In this experiment, participants were overwhelmingly likely to cause physical pain to a subject if they were ordered to do so by a superior. In closing, Kennedy says that as we have seen in the past, human “empathy” alone is not enough to ensure that abuse does not occur.

I believe that the military’s structure itself creates the conditions that would lead to such shocking acts as were committed by the soldiers at Abu Grahib. With the combination of extreme high-stress situations and the insistence on blind obedience of superiors—how can we expect abuse not to happen? Surely, Abu Grahib is only the tip of the iceberg. Surely there is similar if not worse abuse going on at other U.S. detention centers in Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and countless other sites.

The U.S. Can Keep the Peace in Uganda

Graham — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:19:08 EST

As a six-month truce agreement expired yesterday, some in Northern Uganda were moving back to internally displaced person (IDP) camps in uneasy anticipation of what might happen next. Negotiations in Juba, Sudan, for a permanent peace between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have been stalled for much of the truce.

On Capitol Hill yesterday, the ENOUGH campaign, a joint project of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group, held an event with absentee hosts Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Russ Feingold (D-WI). Though the senators could not be there, Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) did attend, but short two long-winded politicians, there was much more time to hear from the gathered experts.

Fresh back from a trip to Uganda, Betty Bigombe of United States Institute of Peace and John Prendergast of ENOUGH reported what they saw. They related the unease of the 2 million people who have been displaced by the fighting. A U.S.-side grassroots organizer on the issue, Michael Poffenberger, who graduated from Notre Dame only two years ago, reported that new estimates put the number of excess deaths due to the situation at 1,000 a week.

The panelists stood aghast at the U.S. media's lack of attention to Uganda at a time when Sudan has finally broken into the mainstream news if in a modest way. But their strongest words were for the U.S. government, which they say could give the Juba peace process much-needed legitimacy.

"This I think is the easiest war in Africa to resolve," Prendergast said. "We don't need billions of dollars, we don't need troops. We just need the us to take some ... leadership." Indeed, he said, the United States has not so much as appointed a full time liaison to the region. But politicians are unlikely to respond without pressure from voters.

Uganda-CAN, co-founded by Poffenberger, is a good place to start if you want to take action. Go there.

Extraordinary Rendition: Slowly unraveling?

ashwini — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 16:19:23 EST

On Friday, Italy became the latest European nation to condemn the C.I.A. practice of extraordinary rendition—the abduction of a foreign citizen for questioning in a third location, usually a country in the Middle East (where normal protections against torture are obsolete). Italy has indicted 26 U.S. citizens, mostly C.I.A. officials, in the illegal rendition of a radical cleric known as Abu Omar. Abu Omar was taken to Egypt for questioning, where he was tortured.

The Italian indictment is the latest development in European outrage over the practice of extraordinary rendition. In January, a German judge issued arrest warrants for 13 C.I.A. officials that colluded in the kidnapping of Khaled El-Masri, and earlier this month the European Union issued a scathing report condemning member states for actively participating in the practice of extraordinary rendition. In another high-profile case, a Canadian commission slammed the rendition of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was tortured in Syria, and cleared him completely of charges of terrorist links. Even the outrage in the U.S. is slowly mounting, most recently with the hard line of questioning Leahy gave Gonzales last month.

Extraordinary rendition clearly violates countless international human rights laws, and the C.I.A. doesn’t even try to conceal its malicious and brutal objectives. The only reason to send a terror suspect to Syria, Egypt or Afghanistan for questioning—nations that the U.S. State Department consistently cites for committing outrageous rights violations of prisoners in custody—is to torture the suspect without doing it on U.S. soil. This is madness.

Will the practice of extraordinary rendition end? I think it has the potential to infuriate the masses, but most people in the U.S. still don’t know that such a practice even exists. Even for those who believe in the so-called War on Terror, kidnapping foreign citizens and sending them to be tortured in the Middle East offends the base standards of human decency. The American agents indicted in Italy and Germany will never actually face trail, as the U.S. would have to agree to extradite its officials to be judged for a policy it created. But one thing is clear—extraodinary rendition relies on the collusion of Canadian and European law enforcement to continue. So if Canada and the E.U. decide they will no longer be complicit in the practice, it will end. Let’s see if this string of indignation will encourage other governments to refuse to cooperate in extraordinary rendition.