Human Rights

Activist Shareholders For Smith And Wesson Embrace The Long View

September 19, 2022 Arnie Alpert , Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Gun violence, Human Rights, Mexico, Shareholder activism, weapons

The killing of seven people and wounding of 47 more in Highland Park, Illinois on July 4 was committed with a weapon made by Smith & Wesson, the world’s biggest firearms manufacturer. So was the killing of 17 people at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. Perhaps it’s no surprise that guns made by Smith & Wesson would be implicated in gun crimes, a category that reached record heights in the United States last year. Neither is it a surprise that the issue crosses U.S. borders. In a lawsuit targeting major gun manufacturers, the Mexican government cited numerous examples of Smith & Wesson rifles being smuggled over the border to criminal cartels. The company is well aware, the lawsuit says, “that its marketing would motivate and attract criminal users — including the cartels — to select and misuse its products in unlawful acts of violence.”

US Leaders Moralize About Alleged Human Rights Abuses In Russia And China To Justify Proxy Wars

September 17, 2022 Lauren Smith, Covert Action Magazine. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drug War, Health Care, Human Rights

Jonny, a pseudonym for a 45-year-old man currently being held in pretrial detention in Miami’s Federal Detention Center (FDC Miami), believes that prison authorities are trying to kill him. Maria, Jonny’s partner of three years, tells me in a series of interviews translated by her teenage daughter that she is also concerned for his life, given FDC Miami’s cruel mismanagement of his grave medical condition. As a pretrial detainee, Jonny’s innocent until proven guilty and protected by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, but you wouldn’t know this from the inhumane treatment he receives at the prison. Jonny’s detention should not deprive him of life, liberty, or property without due process, and it certainly shouldn’t subject him to punishment since he has not been convicted of a crime.

War Is Not The Answer To Deep Planetary Insecurity

September 16, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Human Rights, New Cold War, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

Grave news comes to us from the United Nations (UN). The latest Human Development Report (2021–22) records that for the first time in thirty-two years, the Human Development Index has registered a second consecutive year of decline. The previous five years of gains in areas such as health and education have been negated by this reversal. ‘Billions of people face the greatest cost-of-living crisis in a generation’, says the report. ‘Billions already grapple with food insecurity, owing largely to inequalities in wealth and power that determine entitlements to food. A global food crisis will hit them hardest’. While the UN report points to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine as the immediate sources of this distress, an earlier report on human security notes that ‘more than 6 in 7 people worldwide perceived feeling moderately or very insecure just before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Groups Urge UN To Call For Abolition Of ‘Death By Incarceration’

September 16, 2022 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Deaths, Human Rights, Mass Incarceration, United Nations

Several human rights organizations submitted a 31-page complaint to United Nations experts today, alleging that the United States is committing torture and violating the prohibition against racial discrimination by condemning people to death by incarceration through extreme sentences including life and life without possibility of parole (LWOP). The groups, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Drop LWOP Coalition and the Abolitionist Law Center, are urging the UN to call for the abolition of all death by incarceration sentences. “Death by incarceration is the devastating consequence of a cruel and racially discriminatory criminal legal system that is designed not to address harm, violence, and its root causes, but to satisfy the political pressure to be tough on crime,” the complaint states.

Reimagining Reparations As America’s Marshall Plan And Not Just A Payday

September 15, 2022 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. Create! Black America, Finance, Human Rights, Reparations, Systemic Racism

Congratulations Fam, I hear that you’ve finally secured the bag, otherwise known as reparations. A cool $800,000 to be paid in eight annual installments, the first $100,000 of which arrived in your bank account today. Well, maybe not quite $100k, but about $75,000 after taxes. Still some nice coin. So, how should we get the party started? You say you want to finally buy a house for you and your family? Seventy-five grand is not gonna get you that deluxe apartment on the upper East side, but it’s a nice downpayment on a three-bedroom condo in Teaneck or Tallahassee. All you have to do is pop into the bank and sign on the dotted line . . . but wait one cotton pickin’ minute; is that a subprime mortgage? Perhaps America’s worst- kept secret is that usurious, adjustable mortgages were not designed to help African Americans who don’t have money but to exploit those who do.

The US is a serial human rights abuser

September 7, 2022 Carlos Martinez, Friends of Socialist China. Educate! China, Democracy, Human Rights, New Cold War, US Imperialism

The latest report from the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS), entitled “U.S. commits serious crimes of violating human rights in the Middle East and beyond,” provides a detailed assessment of the United States’ human rights record, particularly in relation to its wars and regime change operations in the Middle East. Noting that U.S. imperialism has caused “permanent damage and irreparable losses to countries and people in the region,” the report highlights a valuable lesson to be learned by the peoples of the world: that the pervasive Western narrative of democracy and human rights is nothing but a façade, behind which lies hegemony, inequality, cruelty and violence.

OHCHR Report On Xinjiang Is A Patchwork Of Disinformation

September 4, 2022 Global Times, Friends of Socialist China. Educate! China, Cold War, Human Rights, United Nations

China on Thursday denounced a so-called UN human rights report on China’s Xinjiang region as completely invalid and a political tool serving the US and some Western forces to contain China, and said that it proved the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has descended into the accomplice of the US and some Western forces against developing countries. In response to the so-called “assessment of human rights concerns” in China’s Xinjiang released by the OHCHR on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a press conference on Thursday that the so-called assessment is a patchwork of disinformation and a political tool serving the US and some Western forces to contain China by using the Xinjiang topic.

ICE Prison In South Georgia Should Be Shut Down, Not Expanded

August 28, 2022 Meredyth L. Yoon and Azadeh Shahshahani, Prism Reports. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Georgia, Human Rights, ICE

Neal, a Jamaican citizen who owned and operated a yacht servicing company for 25 years in South Florida, spent 17 months in a prison that’s been converted into a detention center for immigrants in Georgia. Speaking to us of his experience at the Folkston ICE Processing Center, Neal described a prison that lacks basic safety and care for the people detained there and overall conditions that reveal a jarring lack of regard for human life. “That place is not for safety or for human beings—it is just for money,” said Neal, who wishes to be identified by his first name only. “I thought this government was going to close down all of those private ICE prisons. Politicians say anything when they want votes.” On June 30, a government investigation of Folkston identified numerous violations that “compromised the health, safety, and rights” of detained immigrants.

World Humanitarian Day: A Need For Common Actions

August 22, 2022 Rene Wadlow, Association of World Citizens. Organize! Human Rights, United Nations, Workers, World Humanitarian Day

Sergio de Mellow had spent his UN career in humanitarian efforts, often with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and at other times as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General. As an NGO representative to the UN in Geneva and active on human rights issues, I knew him during his short 2002-2003 tenure as High Commissioner for Human Rights. Many of us had high hopes that his dynamism, relative youth (he was 54) and wide experience in conflict resolution efforts would provide new possibilities for human rights efforts. His death along with the death of others who had been Geneva-based was a stark reminder of the risks that exist for all engaged in humanitarian and conflict resolution work.

Africans Strategize In Washington Against Western-Backed Leaders

August 16, 2022 Julie Varughese, Toward Freedom. Resist! Africa, Europe, Human Rights, US Imperialism, Western imperialism

Silver Spring, Maryland - The United States and its European allies only care about human-rights violations when it benefits them. That’s what a few dozen members of the Horn of Africa and East Africa diaspora agreed upon as they gathered August 13 outside Washington, D.C. A regional conference of the National Unity Platform, a political party in Uganda, brought together members of the country’s diaspora from the New York City and Washington metro areas to strategize on how to tackle U.S. meddling that props up leaders. “The West wants to change regimes for itself, not for Africans—we remember Libya,” said Dr. Berhanu T. Taye, chair of the Global Ethiopian Advocacy Nexus (GLEAN) and member of the Ethiopian American Public Affairs Committee (AEPAC). He was referring to the 2011 U.S./NATO invasion that turned the most prosperous African country into a war zone that hosts slave markets.

The UN Just Declared The Human Right To A Healthy, Sustainable Environment

August 9, 2022 Joel E. Correia, EcoWatch. Organize! climate crisis, Environment, Human Rights, Water

Climate change is already affecting much of the world’s population, with startlingly high temperatures from the Arctic to Australia. Air pollution from wildfires, vehicles and industries threatens human health. Bees and pollinators are dying in unprecedented numbers that may force changes in crop production and food availability. What do these have in common? They represent the new frontier in human rights. The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on July 28, 2022, to declare the ability to live in “a clean, healthy and sustainable environment” a universal human right. It also called on countries, companies and international organizations to scale up efforts to turn that into reality. The declaration is not legally binding – countries can vote to support a declaration of rights while not actually supporting those rights in practice.

Report: Right Violations And War Crimes By Morocco In Western Sahara

August 4, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resist! Human Rights, Morocco, War crimes, Western Sahara

The Collective of Saharawi Human Rights Defenders in Western Sahara (CODESA) released its first annual report on July 28 titled, “Continuous war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Moroccan occupation against Saharawi civilians. What future for the decolonization process in Western Sahara?” According to Mahjoub Maliha, head of CODESA’s external relations, the report reflects “the gravity and scale of the violations committed by the Moroccan occupation forces against Saharawi civilians.” It records human rights violations and war crimes committed in the occupied Western Sahara in the period between September 2020 and December 2021. Morocco claimed sovereignty over Western Sahara after Spain withdrew its colonial control from the territory in 1975.

Whistleblower Testimony Shows BOP Director Ignored Rampant Abuse

August 1, 2022 Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter. Educate! Atlanta, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Georgia, Human Rights, Whistleblowers

The hearing on July 26 was part of an investigation by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations into USP Atlanta, which is a facility for pretrial detainees. So far, the investigation has focused on civil rights violations, prison staff misconduct, the flow of contraband and narcotics, and the high rate of suicides. According to Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, who is the chair of the subcommitee, “The investigation has revealed that gross misconduct persisted at this facility for at least nine years, and that much of the damning information revealing misconduct, abuse, and corruption was known to BOP and accessible to BOP leadership during that period.” The subcommittee invited outgoing BOP Director Michael Carvajal to testify, but the Justice Department initially declined to make Carvajal available.

Western Sahara Will Be Liberated!

August 1, 2022 Progressive International. Organize! colonization, Human Rights, Morocco, Western Sahara

International institutions have failed the Sahrawi people. Over 100 resolutions adopted by the United Nations have recognized the Sahrawi peoples’ right to self-determination, to no effect. The International Court of Justice condemned Mauritania and Morocco’s claims to Western Saharan land as far back as 1975, but Morocco continues to occupy the land illegally. In 1991, the United Nations promised to hold a referendum on Western Saharan statehood, but that referendum has not yet come to pass. Today, some 200,000 Sahrawis live in conditions of violent occupation in Western Sahara. Another 200,000 live in refugee camps in Algeria near the Western Saharan border and in parts of Western Sahara under the control of the Polisario Front. A 2,700km wall with an estimated seven million landmines separates the two territories.

After The Fist Bump

July 22, 2022 Phyllis Bennis, In These Times. Educate! Human Rights, Joe Biden, Palestine, Saudi Arabia

President Biden’s fist bump with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and the president’s up-close-and-personal handshake with former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sparked outrage and cries of hypocrisy from human rights activists, supporters of Palestinian rights, and defenders of democracy. MBS is, after all, responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the war that has devastated Yemenis. Netanyahu, currently on trial for multiple corruption charges, presided for a dozen years over Israel’s apartheid system, settlement expansion, war crimes in Gaza, and the murders of several journalists even before Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in May. Outrage was absolutely called for. Symbolism is important. But the fist bump and the handshake were the least of it.

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