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By Julian Fellowes
$16.49
By Manning Marable
$16.50
$35
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Flickr / Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said both sides in Sri Lanka’s civil war “grossly disregarded the fundamental principle of the inviolability of civilians.” She has called for an “independent and credible international investigation,” although she’s up against the notoriously impotent U.N. Human Rights Council and a bristling Sri Lankan government.
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guardian.co.uk
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Investigators with the U.N. Human Rights Council may be forced to enter the Palestinian territories from Egypt because Israel is likely to refuse cooperation in the U.N.’s mission to investigate potential war crimes by the Israeli military and Hamas.
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rebelreports.com
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Gang-beatings, breaking bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles and dousing detainees with chemicals. Those Bush-era actions are still going on under Obama’s regime at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo, as the narrowing of the “torture debate” has occluded attention from such grotesque practices.
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flickr.com
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Andrew Sullivan has some sharp words for how the Obama administration is dealing with LGBT issues: “I lived through eight years of the Clintons and then eight years of Bush. Through it all, gay people were treated at the federal level like embarrassments or impediments. With Clinton, we were the means to raise money. With Bush, we were the means to leverage votes by exploiting bigotry. Obama seemed in the campaign to promise something else.”
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flickr.com
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The D.C. council passed a measure Tuesday to recognize same-sex marriages within the district by a 12-1 vote—with D.C. stalwart/weirdo Marion Barry casting the lone dissension. The result will likely prime the debate on legalizing same-sex marriage in D.C.
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smh.com.au
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After a series of denials by the Bush administration, the Obama administration has decided it will give in to demands by human rights groups and release up to 2,000 pictures of “prisoner abuse” (torture) to the public by May 28.
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AP photo / Marianna Kambon, Summit of the Americas pool
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Could it be that diplomacy works better than a my-way-or-the-highway approach when dealing with adversarial nations? Judging by President Obama’s apparent progress with the Cuban government, the answer would seem to be yes.
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guardian.co.uk
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After key Bush era CIA torture documents were released by the Obama administration, human rights officials are dismayed at the news that CIA agents who ordered and conducted torture will not be prosecuted.
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gayjourney.com
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Proving once again how awesome Iowa is and how the battle for civil rights continues, Iowa’s Supreme Court has ruled that its ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, making it the third state to legalize gay marriage.
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IDF
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The Israeli military has exonerated itself after investigating the recent comments of soldiers who alleged abuses in Gaza. The military said in a statement that the accounts, which described the casual shooting of women and children, were “based on hearsay and not supported by facts.” Nine Israeli human rights groups have called for an independent investigation.
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secint50.un.org
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By Robert Fisk — Dr Salim el-Hoss is 80 now but remains a staunch defender of human rights and democracy, an opponent of the death penalty and an outspoken supporter of Palestinians. When I recommended to him a long article on American torture, he read it right through to the end and then put the paper down with a slap on his knee. “Terrible, terrible,” he muttered.
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The Guardian / Frank Baron
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Growing evidence of British complicity in “unacceptable activities,” including participation in U.S. torture practices, has prompted Prime Minister Gordon Brown to publish the rules that determine how U.K. intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6 can interrogate suspects.
Posted on Mar 18, 2009
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wn.com
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After an estimated 10,000 civilian deaths or injuries in only two months, the U.N. has called on the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels to immediately suspend fighting, suggesting that actions by both parties may constitute violations of international human rights law.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Not only would a proposed Nigerian law mean prison for gay people who live together, but also anyone who “aids and abets” them. A giant step beyond outlawing gay sex, the law would give police the power to arrest suspected cohabiting gays as well as human rights workers who deal with gay rights.
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aclu.org
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The Justice Department has released nine secret memos and opinions written by the Office of Legal Counsel that authorized some of the Bush administration’s unlawful national security policies.
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breakfornews.com
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The International Criminal Court is getting its teeth, as judges have ordered the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity—including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape—marking the first time the ICC has issued a warrant for a sitting head of state.
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Air Force
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In announcing her department’s annual human rights report, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made multiple references to the elephant in the room—the United States’ own tarnished record, saying “America must first be an exemplar of our own ideals.”
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Jon Soucy
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A three-year review of more than 40 countries has found that justice systems prior to 9/11 were perfectly capable of combating terrorism. The U.S. and Britain were especially opportunistic in their violations of human rights and international law and gave comfort by example to other abusive regimes, the International Commission of Jurists found.
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guardian.co.uk
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On the heels of Israel’s election and its bloody three-week assault on the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority is pressing the International Criminal Court to investigate the possibility of war crimes committed by Israeli commanders.
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Wikimedia Commons / Agência Brasil
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The BBC reports: “Any Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes in the Gaza Strip will be given state protection from prosecution overseas, the country’s PM has said.” At issue is Israel’s use of white phosphorous, a chemical agent that is not permitted in densely populated areas because it sticks to and severely burns human tissue.
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Outraged by the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s benediction at Barack Obama’s inauguration, Glenn Beck is calling a post-racial foul. “Even at the inauguration of a black president, it seems white America is being called racist,” Beck whined after Lowrey suggested that “white will embrace what’s right.”
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guardian.co.uk
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Following accusations by human rights groups last week, Israel has finally admitted that its troops “may have used” white phosphorus shells—a chemical agent that wreaks havoc on the skin—in contravention of international law.
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inquisitr.com
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Attorney general nominee Eric H. Holder Jr. has announced a groundbreaking hypothesis on waterboarding: It’s torture. The position, which contradicts piles of Bush-era law literature defending the practice, is just one step in an avowed process to fix many of the problems riddling current Justice Department policy.
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Flickr.com / PMorgan
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After reconfiguring its output figures, China has finally found itself on the medal podium for gross domestic product, ousting Germany from its role as third largest economy in the world. China’s economy has grown tenfold in the past 30 years, and its development, while marveled at, worries many environmental, human rights and labor activists.
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AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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It is unsurprising that a group like Human Rights Watch has condemned the Bush government for jettisoning the U.S. role as a defender of global human rights: Numerous examples—Guantanamo, gay marriage, Iraq, etc.—accentuate this failure.
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By William Pfaff — George W. Bush’s war against terror has brought out of the darker places in America a lot of people who want to torture, or like the idea of it. We know it doesn’t work, so what drives Dick Cheney and his colleague to champion such moral depravity?
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iphone.foxnews.com
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There was no doubt as to Israel’s take on recent comments about Israeli-Palestinian relations made by United Nations official Richard Falk when he arrived Sunday at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, only to be denied entry and sent immediately back to Zurich.
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telegraph.co.uk
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In a move that further complicates the anti-government unrest rocking Greece for the past four days, the country’s two biggest trade unions have declared their intention to go ahead with a planned 24-hour strike, likely to paralyze the economy in protest against government policies and incompetent handling of the economic crisis.
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lemonodor.com
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It looks like a pact to ban current cluster bomb designs will take another step forward, with more than 100 countries slated to sign the treaty in the next couple of days. However, the U.S., Russia and China—the largest cluster bomb manufacturers—so far have refused to sign on.
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AP photo / Tony Avelar
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By Scott Tucker — As political leaders from the right rally their base seeking to outlaw gay marriage, and their counterparts on the left triangulate and equivocate, any real examination of the driving conflicts and stakes behind this crucial human rights concern is conspicuously missing from their debates about California’s Proposition 8.
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syracuse.com
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Want proof that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan has brought the democracy it promised? You won’t find it in this case. An appeals court resentenced Parwez Kambakhsh, a student arrested for distributing an article on women’s rights, to a mere 20 years in prison, overturning the controversial death sentence he was given last year.
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eitb24.com
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An acclaimed Spanish judge has ordered the unearthing of some of the unmarked graves of the tens of thousands who were killed during the first two decades of Gen. Francisco Franco’s fascist rule of Spain, formally declaring the repression by Franco and associates as a “crime against humanity.”
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abcnews.com
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The Supreme Court of Connecticut joined the ranks of California and Massachusetts on Friday to (finally) legalize same-sex marriage. The decision comes at a potentially prickly time as the presidential election looms, although both John McCain and Barack Obama have, so far, exerted little rhetorical effort to make gay rights a wedge issue in the campaign.
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Fighting between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas has led to human rights abuses in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch. A Palestinian human rights organization recently drew similar conclusions. Both sides have admitted to at least some of the findings of the report.
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soberaniachile.cl
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Former Argentine army officer and current scumbag Luciano Benjamin Menendez finally got what should have happened to him 30 years ago: a life sentence in jail for the kidnap, torture and murder of anti-dictatorship activists in 1977.
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AP photo / Ng Han Guan
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Taking cues from past Olympic protests and the U.S.‘s notoriously ironic “free speech zones,” the Chinese government has declared its openness to dissidents criticizing the state—so long as dissent is contained in one of three areas, does not threaten vague notions of national unity, and is submitted five days beforehand to the local security bureau.
Posted on Jul 23, 2008
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Tab, The Calgary Sun —
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By Amy Goodman — It is fantastic to see Ingrid Betancourt free, but the celebration of her release should not be confused with celebration of the Colombian government.
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Following a similar move by Australia earlier this year, Canada’s prime minister will offer a formal apology to the country’s indigenous peoples for the state’s unjust treatment of them, most notably the forced enrollment of more than 100,000 native students in state-funded Christian boarding schools aimed at assimilating them into white society.
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Memoria Popular
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The case of Victor Jara, the famous folk musician murdered by dictator Augusto Pinochet’s army in 1973, will be reopened due to new evidence provided by the musician’s family. Human rights groups see Jara’s case as important in keeping attention on Chilean human rights abusers who for the past 35 years have avoided jail time.
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Agence France-Presse / Alexander Joe
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From detaining his opponent while in the middle of a runoff election campaign to suspending international aid operations due to groups’ alleged bias against the government, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has stopped at nothing to keep himself in power.
Posted on Jun 4, 2008
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An Egyptian blogger, Karim el-Beheiri, who was arrested with two former co-workers from Mahalla’s Misr Spinning and Weaving company (all three were fired after their arrest) on April 6 and released Sunday, said he and his colleagues were shocked, beaten and denied sustenance during their ordeal behind bars.
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cnn.com
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John Amaechi is not your typical basketball star. The former center for Utah, Orlando and Cleveland is the first NBA alumnus to openly declare that he’s gay, and now he’s combining sports and cultural politics in another sense by serving as Amnesty International’s sports ambassador to this summer’s Beijing Olympics.
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Flickr / SqueakyMarmot
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World leaders are about to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, but leading human rights organization Amnesty International says they should first apologize for failing to tackle widespread abuses around the world. The group’s annual report cites 81 countries for torture or maltreatment and chastises the United States for setting such a poor example.
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Agence France-Presse
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The U.N. has announced it will resume aid to Burma after conflicts over how food and equipment were to be distributed grounded relief flights. Cyclone Nargis has killed at least 22,000 Burmese, and the ruling junta has been categorically criticized for its ineptitude in dealing with the disaster.
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mcclatchydc.com
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Sami al-Haj, a cameraman for Al-Jazeera, was released Thursday evening after spending almost seven years in U.S. custody, six of those as an inmate at Guantanamo Bay. Haj was never charged with any crime, nor was any evidence against him ever revealed.
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AP photo / Jeff Zelevansky, pool
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Pope Benedict XVI’s latest major stop on his U.S. tour took him to the United Nations, where he held forth about the need to prioritize human rights for all and pointed out how the majority of power to impact global events still remains in the hands of very few key players.
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AP photo / Vincent Thian
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On Monday, a day after his death, former Indonesian President Suharto was given a state funeral and buried in Java, sparking mixed reaction as Indonesians recalled both the strong points and the controversial (even despotic) sides of the man who was their nation’s leader for more than 30 years.
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White House photo by Eric Draper
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Just weeks after publicly fretting about Pervez Musharraf’s dictatorial power grab, George W. Bush has decided that the Pakistani president “hasn’t crossed the line” and “truly is somebody who believes in democracy.” It’s an assessment that would be comical if it didn’t have to do with the freedom of millions of people and the security of dozens of nuclear weapons.
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current.com
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If the combined power of thousands of Buddhist monks staging a nonviolent protest isn’t enough to oust Burma’s oppressive junta, one American hero (cue movie trailer voice-over) is coming to fight for democracy in a faraway land—or at least stick his nose in another nation’s business.
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