Knowledge Centre : Human Rights : Freedom from Injustice
Categories
- Child Rights (44) new
- Death Penalty (7)
- International Criminal Court (14)
- Justice (37) new
- UN Human Rights Council (13)
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Links
- Tortured Beginnings: Police Violence and the Beginnings of Impunity in East Timor
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This 60-page report is based on dozens of interviews with witnesses and victims of police abuse in East Timor. It documents excessive force during arrests, torture and ill-treatment of detainees by the National Police of East Timor. It goes over reforms, institutions and practices needed to create police accountability in East Timor, and makes recommendations to the Government of East Timor, and to donors and others providing assistance to the police. (Human Rights Watch, April 2006)
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/easttimor0406/
(Added: Tue May 02 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 269)
- Challenging Impunity Through the Guatemalan Justice System
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Though Bishop Juan Gerardi was murdered 8 years ago, his case still remains open in the Guatemalan courts. This author argues that the country must use the Gerardi case as a catalyst to address the glaring impunity that has surrounded attacks against human rights defenders and the murders of young people like Darinel in Guatemala. In order to challenge the violence, fear and corruption that have haunted Guatemala, justice must be backed by a legitimate judicial system and a police force that cares more about its citizenry than itself. (Jennifer Mizgata, Toward Freedom, 4 May 2006)
http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/811/
(Added: Fri May 05 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 97)
- The Burmese people can't wait much longer
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In this article, a Burmese former policial prisoner writes about his country, an 'aborted democracy' that the military regime call Myanmar. Tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS have reached their highest levels ever. The education system is a shambles. Inflation is rampant. To unblock the stalemate over humanitarian aid caused by the regime's pariah status, the only opposition has made overtures to the regime, only to be dismissed as 'terrorists.' The article outlines ways the international community can help. (Ludu Sein Win, International Herald Tribune, 23 May 2006)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/23/opinion/edludu.php
(Added: Thu May 25 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 194)
- "They Do Not Own This Place": Government Discrimination Against "Non-Indigenes" in Nigeria (pdf)
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This 64-page report documents the harmful impact of discriminatory policies against those citizens defined as "non-indigenes" in Nigeria. These policies have a harmful impact on the human rights of many Nigerians and are in violation of the Nigerian constitution and international human rights law. The report also shows how these policies of discrimination exacerbate interethnic and interreligious tension in ways that have sparked violence in many different parts of the country. (Human Rights Watch, 25 April 2006)
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/nigeria0406/nigeria0406web.pdf
(Added: Fri May 05 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 189)
- A Call to Action: Crisis in Zimbabwe
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The SADC mediation talks must incorporate human rights concerns and set clear benchmarks for progress. This memorandum provides a brief summary of human rights concerns in Zimbabwe and proposes a number of actions to help tackle the crisis (Human Rights Watch, August 2007).
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/zimbabwe0807/zimbabwe0807web.pdf
(Added: Tue Sep 11 2007 Hits: 81)
- Americans on Hold: Profiling, Citizenship, and the "War on Terror"
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The U.S. government is illegally delaying the naturalization applications of thousands of immigrants by profiling individuals it perceives to be Muslim and subjecting them to indefinite security checks, charged the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) in a new report. The 63-page report documents the impact of expanded security checks on the lives of those experiencing citizenship delays, often for years on end. The report analyzes these delays and their impact within an international human rights framework, and offers specific policy recommendations to help end discrimination in access to citizenship and other human rights violations. (CHRGJ at NYU Law, 2007).
http://www.chrgj.org/docs/AOH/AmericansonHoldReport.pdf
(Added: Wed Aug 08 2007 Hits: 141)
- Anti-Slavery International
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Anti-Slavery was set up in 1839 with the specific objective of ending slavery throughout the world. Despite our many successful campaigns, slavery continues to exist in the 21st century. Anti-Slavery's work is divided among three teams: Programme, Communication and Information, enabling us to work effectively towards achieving our goal of a slave-free world.
(Added: Fri Sep 07 2001 Modified: Fri Dec 02 2005 Hits: 249)
- Anti-terrorism Measures, Security and Human Rights: Developments in Europe, Central Asia and North America in the Aftermath of September 11 (PDF)
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Report by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF).- "In the months that have passed since the tragedy, states have inter alia increased the powers of law enforcement and intelligence institutions, including to interrogate and detain persons, to intercept private communications and to conduct searches of private homes and personal property without the normal procedural safeguards; have tightened border controls that impede access to their territory and adopted new, restrictive asylum and immigration measures that may limit access for bona fide asylum seekers; and have authorized various registration and profiling schemes that appear to target certain groups solely because of their race, ethnicity or religion."
http://www.dev-zone.org/downloads/anti-terrorism.pdf
(Added: Mon Sep 22 2003 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 228)
- Arab Human Development Report 2004
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"Towards Freedom in the Arab World". United Nations, 2005. Urging a rapid acceleration of democratic reform, the "Arab Human Development Report 2004" calls for many far-reaching legal and political changes to fortify the institutional foundations of freedom, limit the monopoly on power currently enjoyed by the executive in most countries and ensure an independent judiciary and total free speech (UN News Service).
http://www.un-ngls.org/Arab_Human_Development_Report_2004_eng.pdf
(Added: Thu Apr 07 2005 Modified: Fri Feb 09 2007 Hits: 225)
- Beyond Abu Ghraib: Detention and torture in Iraq
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Nearly three years after United States (US) and allied forces invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussain, the human rights situation in the country remains dire. The deployment of US-led forces in Iraq and the armed response that engendered has resulted in thousands of deaths of civilians and widespread abuses amid the ongoing conflict. n this report, Amnesty International focuses on another part of the equation, specifically its concerns about human rights abuses for which the US-led Multinational Force is directly responsible and those which are increasingly being committed by Iraqi security forces. The record of these forces, including US forces and their United Kingdom (UK) allies, is an unpalatable one. (Amnesty International, 6 March 2006)
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde140012006
(Added: Tue Jun 06 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 155)
- Burma: Security Council Should Impose Arms Embargo
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The United Nations Security Council should impose and enforce a mandatory arms embargo on Burma because of continuing massive violations of human rights says Human Rights Watch. India, China, Russia, and other nations are supplying Burma with weapons that the military uses to commit human rights abuses and to bolster its ability to maintain power.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/10/10/burma17066.htm
(Added: Fri Oct 12 2007 Hits: 88)
- Call for justice in Mexico!
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In Mexico, the criminal justice system is gravely flawed. The country's law and enforcement agencies and judicial system do not effectively protect people from human rights abuses, and perpetrators are rarely brought to justice. These systemic deficiencies lead to arbitrary detentions, torture, fabrication of evidence and unfair trials. For example, Elionai Santiago Sánchez and Ramiro Aragon were arrested, beaten and tortured in Oaxaca in 2006, yet no one has been held to account. Send an email to call on the President of Mexico and the President of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies to seek prompt and substantial reform of the public security and criminal justice system within a human rights framework.
(Added: Tue Feb 20 2007 Hits: 163)
- Chop Fine: The Human Rights Impact of Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State, Nigeria
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Nigeria has produced several hundred billion dollars worth of oil since independence in 1960, but ordinary Nigerians have derived appallingly little benefit from all of that wealth. This situation exists primarily because successive governments, both military and civilian, have stolen or misused much of Nigeria's tremendous oil wealth. The head of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has stated that the country lost as much as $380 billion to corruption and waste between 1960 and 1999, the year Nigeria's current government came to power. (Human Rights Watch, January 2007).
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/nigeria0107/
(Added: Fri Mar 02 2007 Hits: 64)
- Close Guantánamo now!
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You want Guantánamo closed? Say/sing/act it on camera in a 5 to 10 seconds video clip! You're welcome to comment further on why Guantánamo should be closed, as long as it is not offensive. If you can, shoot your video at a recognisable landmark from your city or your country (the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Zocalo in Mexico City...). Collected material will be compiled and edited into one big Make Some Noise video, to spearhead Amnesty International's "Close Guantánamo" campaign around the world.
(Added: Mon Dec 04 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 176)
- Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
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US Department of State, February, 2005. The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices provide a key framework that the United States and others around the world use in assessing the state of human freedom and in marshalling efforts to advance it. The conscientious compiling of these reports equips us to more effectively stand against oppression and for human dignity and liberty. Our embassies and Washington staff work closely with local citizens, human rights and other organizations, and community leaders to identify, investigate, and verify information. These volumes, available in the languages of most of the world's peoples, foster discussion, promote advocacy, permit the measurement of progress, and show where improvements are needed.
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/
(Added: Mon Mar 07 2005 Modified: Fri Dec 02 2005 Hits: 378)
- Crime & punishment
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Recent decades have witnessed horrible atrocities. But a new system of international justice is slowly rising from the carnage. Global efforts to confront impunity looked at in this article include war crimes legislation, International Criminal Tribunals, the International Criminal Court, and truth commissions. (Wayne Ellwood, New Internationalist, December 2005)
http://www.newint.org/issue385/keynote.htm
(Added: Fri Apr 28 2006 Modified: Thu Jun 22 2006 Hits: 111)
- Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor [PDF]
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This much awaited report details the systematic human rights violations committed during the 24-year Indonesian occupation of Timor and the failure to achieve justice for these crimes. The report, entitled "Chega!" ("Enough!" in Portuguese), is available in English and Bahasa Indonesia. From the International Centre for Transitional Justice.
http://www.etan.org/news/2006/cavr.htm
(Added: Mon Feb 20 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 274)
- Fundacion de Antropologia de Forense (FAFG)
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FAFG is an organisation that helps family members find the bodies of the people who disappeared during the mass murders committed during the 'governance' of Rios Montt, to collect information for possible penal trails against the suspects and to rebury the victim's bodies.
(Added: Thu Sep 18 2003 Modified: Tue Dec 20 2005 Hits: 192)
- Genocide in Slow Motion
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In this New York Review of books article American journalist Nicholas Kristof reviews two books on the Dafur genocide - Darfur: A Short History of a Long War (by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal) and Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide (by Gerard Prunier). In doing so Kristof provides a detailed history of the conflict as well as outlining the ongoing tragedy. Kristof ends his review with a plea for UN intervention to halt the ongoing crisis before it becomes just another name in the long list of crimes against humanity that have taken place while the rest of the World has looked away.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18674
(Added: Fri Jan 27 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 301)
- Howard's New Tampa - Aboriginal Children Overboard
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Howard's new Tampa children overboard are our Aboriginal children. The Little Children are Sacred report does not advocate physically and psychologically invasive examinations of Aboriginal children, which could only be carried out anally and vaginally. It does not recommend scrapping the permit system to enter Aboriginal lands, nor does it recommend taking over Aboriginal 'towns' by enforced leases. These latter two points in the Howard scheme hide the true reason for the Federal Government's use of the latest report for blatant political opportunism. It has been an openly stated agenda that Howard wants to move Aboriginal people off their lands, and has made recent attempts to buy off Aboriginal people by offering them millions for agreeing to lease their lands to the Federal Government, e.g. Tiwi Islands and Tangentyere in Alice Springs. There was also the statement by the Federal Government that it could not continue (?!) to provide essential services to remote communities, which raised an uproar of responses in the press. The focus on the sexual abuse of children is guaranteed to evoke the most emotive responses, and therefore command attention, just like the manipulation of the Tampa situation. But while the attention of the media and the public is being emotionally coerced, what is being sneaked in under the covers? (Jennifer Martiniello, Project Safecom.Inc, 25 June 2007).
http://www.safecom.org.au/howards-new-tampa.htm
(Added: Fri Jul 06 2007 Hits: 167)
- Human rights: Where is the U.S.?
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In this article, the former U.S. representative to the UN Commission for Human Rights, argues that the United States, despite not being a member of the Human Rights Council, must send a high-level envoy to engage in influencing and establishing procedures as the new Council takes form, as it ought not to turn our back on any opportunity to advance human rights throughout the world, having regressed their progress in its so-called 'war on terror'. (Nancy Rubin, International Herald Tribune, 20 June 2006)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/20/opinion/edrubin.php
(Added: Thu Jun 22 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 187)
- Justice for Victims of Agent Orange
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Even though the Vietnam War ended 30 years ago, the US's saturation chemical bombing is still wreaking havoc on millions, including the newly born, making them third-generation victims. Nobody knows when the congenital deformities, one of many horrific health consequences of the toxic chemicals, will end. Sign this international online petition in solidarity with all the Agent Orange victims in Vietnam. Launched in 2004, more than 600,000 signatures have already been collected. (Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin)
http://www.greenleft.org.au/agent_orange.htm
(Added: Wed May 31 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 274)
- Mexico: Defend the rights of protestors and detainees
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Demonstrations in Oaxaca began in May, when teachers went on strike and occupied the city centre to demand improved pay and working conditions. The protestors occupied official buildings and media outlets, blocking roads with barricades. As the protest spread to other parts of the city, in late 2006 state security forces used excessive force in attempts to evict the protesters. Several people were killed, and many of the hundreds of detainees were tortured. Express your cncern to the Mexican government.
http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/mexico_protestors_detainees.php
(Added: Wed Feb 21 2007 Hits: 106)
- Minorities Under Siege: Pygmies today in Africa
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This 36-page report looks at the status of pygmies in the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It examines treatment of indigenous peoples globally, and the issues confronting pygmies in particular: discrimination, land rights, human rights, political representation - and survival. It includes interviews with individuals relevant to the pygmy cause, and links and references. (IRIN, April 2006)
http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/pygmy/Pygmies-today-in-Africa-IRIN-In-Depth.pdf
(Added: Tue May 16 2006 Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007 Hits: 184)
- Nepal: Bhutanese Refugee Tensions Erupt Into Violence: Nepali Police Need to Protect Refugees' Freedom of Expression
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Violence continues in Nepal towards Bhutanese refugees. On May 27, a group claiming to be members of the Bhutanese Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) attacked refugees who have voiced support for a US offer to resettle Bhutanese refugees. In response to the violence, a contingent of the Nepal Armed Police opened fire on the mob. Human Rights Watch states that although there is no question that Bhutanese refugees have a right to return to Bhutan, they also have the right to make choices on essential issues like resettlement without threats, intimidation or violence (Human Rights Watch, 31 May 2007).
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/31/bhutan16034.htm
(Added: Tue Jun 05 2007 Hits: 48)
