Human Rights

Photo Essay: Detroit Violates Human Rights To Residents

January 19, 2015 Balazs Gardi, www.azdarya.com Educate! Detroit, Human Rights, Water

Although Detroit sits next to one-fifth of the world’s freshwater supply, earlier this year the city decided to cut the water off from its residents who cannot not afford to pay for it. I have travelled to almost all continents in the past decade photographing stories of conflict over water and I have witnessed vicious violence between people struggling for survival. Yet the unnecessary violation of the human right to water in the world’s most powerful country shocks me the most. “Rather than forcefully displacing people in these outer areas we have convenient policies and systems in place that are doing it anyway.” says Michele Oberholtzer, a writer, engineer and environmentalist and founder of the Tricycle Collective.

On Guantanamo 13th Anniversary, Detainee Describes Torture

January 14, 2015 Reprieve, www.reprieve.org.uk Educate! Guatanamo, Human Rights, Torture

13 years after the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay was opened, a hunger striking detainee who has been cleared for release, yet remains imprisoned, has described his ongoing torture. Emad Hassan, a Yemeni detainee who has been on hunger strike since 2007 and cleared for release since 2009, wrote in a recent letter to his lawyers at human rights NGO Reprieve that “they have strapped us to the torture chair for four hours – two in the morning and two in the evening”. Mr Hassan wrote that when visitors – such as journalists or Congressional members – are touring the prison, the medical staff rush force-feedings, despite him telling the doctors, “I will vomit.”

21 Arrested Interrupting Senate Protesting Torture & Guantanamo

January 14, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! CIA, Congress, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Torture

Over a dozen protesters disrupted the Senate Monday afternoon by chanting demands for an end to U.S. torture with impunity. The civil disobedience, organized by Witness Against Torture, was a dramatic culmination of a week of action in Washington, D.C. to press for the closure of the military's offshore prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba as it enters its 14th year. "Torture, It’s Official, Prosecute Now!" protesters shouted in unison, in reference to the recently released, partially-redacted executive summary of the Senate report on CIA torture. The actions followed an earlier rally for an end to impunity for police who kill people of color and for indefinite detentions without trial in Guantánamo Bay.

Vermont Healthcare Advocates Disrupt Legislature

January 8, 2015 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Healthcare, Human Rights, Vermont

Protesters occupied the chambers of the Vermont Statehouse Thursday afternoon, saying they refuse to leave until legislators meet their demands to respect the first-ever U.S. law for universal, publicly-funded health care, won by social movements nearly four years ago yet stymied by the governor last month. The Vermont Workers Center is pushing the legislature to proceed to funding the universal health care plan even without Governor Shumlin. The Burlington Free Press reported: The protesters, organized by the Vermont Workers’ Center through the Health Care is a Human Right Campaign, demanded that House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, schedule a public hearing on single-payer financing by Jan. 29.

9 LGBTQ Stories From 2014

January 7, 2015 Toshio Meronek, www.truth-out.org Educate! Human Rights, LGBTQ, Media

Radical queer organizing was alive and well in the US in 2014; you just may not have heard about it in mainstream media. The mainstream "Homosexual Agenda" in 2014 revolved around conservative issues like gay marriage and transgender military inclusion. That meant lots of important queer and trans stories didn't get much of a voice. Buzz about the criminalization of trans sex workers and the horror stories of undocumented queer people in immigration detention centers may have been muted by the Big Media gatekeepers, but these issues deserve a wider audience. Here are nine stories that will no doubt reverberate in 2015. . .

Four Pivotal Internet Issues As The Year Turns 2015

January 7, 2015 Timothy Karr, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Human Rights, Internet, Net Neutrality

Still, the Internet's fate feels distinctly uncertain as 2015 begins. Washington is engaged in a furious debate over Net Neutrality, access to affordable broadband services is still considered a luxury for many, while governments here and abroad continue to filter digital communications to spy on everyone, crack down on dissident voices and silence speech. At stake is whether the Internet remains a democratic, user-powered network -- or falls under the control of a few powerful entities. Here are the four Internet issues that played leading roles in the United States in 2014, and which will remain at center stage as the New Year begins.

Is Israel Unfairly Held To A Higher Standard?

January 5, 2015 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Educate! Human Rights, Israel

First of all, Israel has accumulated a quite ugly record if you even compare it to its neighbors. We're talking about now, as we sit here, Israel has conducted, in the last six years, three major operations against the people of Gaza. And by any reckoning, the Israeli policy towards Gaza is just so abominably criminal that I don't see how any circumstance can mitigate that fact. Yes, it's true that gays are treated awfully in Gaza and Iran. Okay, fine. And in Saudi Arabia. But how does that mitigate the fact that Israel has been launching these operations against, basically, a defenseless and impoverished population in an almost--at this point you would have to describe it as a sadistic fashion.

Homeless For The Holidays – A Man & His Companion – Part III

January 5, 2015 John Zangas, www.dcmediagroup.us Educate! Homelessness, Human Rights

Anthony, 47 years old, is friendly as he greets me as I pass through McPherson, on Christmas. “What have you got for me,” he asks? His companion, ‘Chico’, is an obedient mixed Pit Bull and looks up suspiciously as I go through my bag to find something for him to eat. Chico stands close to him, eyeing me with a worried look and afraid to leave Anthony’s side. The street has been harsh to Both Anthony and Chico, who has a human like quality and wears his master’s suffering on his face. Anthony agrees to let me take his picture but only if I’ll give him something other than food. “Everyone is giving out food but I need money and clothes,” he says.

Lessons On The Struggle For Health Care As A Human Right

January 4, 2015 Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Strategize! health, Health Care, Human Rights, Single payer health care

Many in the US don’t understand that they have human rights, let alone that their rights are being violated. The human rights framework is based on five core principles. Put simply, they are universality, that all people are included; equity, that all are able to participate; transparency, that all have access to information; accountability, that those who make decisions answer to the people; and participation, that all are able to participate in the process. It is the government’s responsibility to guarantee our human rights. Once we have this understanding of our rights, we see the violation of our human rights across a broad sector of issues whether it is the right to housing, education, a job with a living wage, healthcare, clean water and air or other rights. Then we can look more deeply to understand why these rights are being denied and that there are systemic root causes that are the same for all of these issues. All of our struggles face the same obstacles of monstrous industries that are driven by profit through exploitation of people and the planet and that control not only the lawmakers but in most areas, the method by which they are elected.

The Real History Of Selma

January 3, 2015 Emilye Crosby, www.teachingforchange.org Educate! Civil Rights, Human Rights, Racial Justice

On this 50th anniversary year of the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act it helped inspire, national attention is centered on the iconic images of “Bloody Sunday,” the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the interracial marchers, and President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act. This version of history, emphasizing a top-down narrative and isolated events, reinforces the master narrative which civil rights activists describe as, “Rosa sat down, Martin stood up, and the white folks came South to save the day.” Today, issues of racial equity and voting rights are front and center in the lives of young people. There is much they can learn from an accurate telling of the Selma (Dallas County) voting rights campaign and the larger Civil Rights Movement. We owe it to students on this anniversary to share the history that can help equip them to carry on the struggle today.

National Protest Against Prison At Guantanamo Planned For Miami

January 1, 2015 Cassia Laham, www.fightbacknews.com Resist! Cuba, Guantanamo, Human Rights, Prison, Torture

Following the recent CIA torture report, determined activists in Florida are gearing up for the annual march and protest to shut down the U.S. torture prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. Anti-war leaders expect hundreds will protest outside the gates of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) on Jan. 11 in Doral, Florida, which is located near Miami. Notable speakers from across the country include Nancy Mancias of CodePink!, Camilo Mejia of Veterans for Peace and Holly Kent-Payne of Chicago with the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. “We need to continue to oppose U.S. torture of citizens and non-citizens alike. The detention centers at Guantanamo Bay are symbols of oppression and violence and must be shut down,” said Pamela Maldonado, an organizer with People’s Opposition to War, Imperialism, and Racism (POWIR).

Seattle Tenants Force Public Housing Not To Raise Rent

December 29, 2014 James Tracy, www.rooflines.org Organize! Human Rights, Public Housing, Seattle

Public housing tenants are celebrating the Seattle Housing Authority’s (SHA) decision to retract a controversial plan to raise rents by more than 400 percent in the coming years. The “Stepping Forward” plan, announced last September, was immediately met with stiff resistance from tenants mostly organized through theTenants Union of Washington State(TUWS). In November, about 200 tenants of SHA buildings marched down Queen Anne Avenue to protest, then descended on the regularly scheduled SHA Board of Commissioners meeting, and spoke out about fears of displacement and homelessness if the plan were to be implemented. Commented TUWS leader and public housing resident Lynn Sereda, “We do remain vigilant, but consider this to be a victory for tenants, and our attention is now focused on making sure that the new appointments to the Board of Commissioners of SHA will be accountable to tenants and that we will have a voice in that process.”

Trafficking, Child Labor In Global Chocolate Industry

December 27, 2014 Carey L. Biron, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Human Rights, Labor Rights

Almost two decades of advocacy work and multi-stakeholder discussions have resulted in nearly universal acknowledgement of the crushing labor and inequity issues that characterized the chocolate industry for much of the previous century, and have sparked substantive and ongoing action to rectify some of these problems. However, a two-year study, released this week by a labor watchdog group, has found numerous gaps in these initiatives. The report, titled “The Fairness Gap,” paints a picture of an industry that, despite strengthening efforts over the past few years from many of the biggest Western companies, continues to place too little emphasis on ensuring living or even minimum wages for its cocoa farmers, most of whom are in West Africa.

The United States Is Committing Brutal Torture Right Now

December 24, 2014 Nafeez Ahmed, www.truth-out.org Educate! Human Rights, Torture, usa

The grisly details of CIA torture have finally been at least partly aired through the release of the executive summary to a landmark Senate intelligence committee report. The extent of the torture has been covered extensively across the media, and is horrifying. But much of the media coverage of this issue is missing the crucial bigger picture: the deliberate rehabilitation of torture under the Obama administration, and its systematic use to manufacture false intelligence to justify endless war. Torture victims, who had been detained by the US national security apparatus entirely outside any sort of recognizable functioning system of due process, endured a litany of extreme abuses normally associated with foreign dictatorships: 180-hour sleep deprivation, forced "rectal feeding," rectal "exams" using "excessive force," standing for dozens of hours on broken limbs, waterboarding, being submerged in iced baths, and on and on.

Four Ways 2014 Was A Pivotal Year For The Internet

December 23, 2014 Timothy Karr, www.otherwords.org Organize! Democracy, Human Rights, Internet

The death of the Internet is at hand. Sound familiar? That’s what Internet pioneer Robert Metcalfe predicted in 1995 when he wrote that spiraling demands on the fledgling network would cause the Internet to “catastrophically collapse” by 1996. Metcalfe, of course, was dead wrong: The Internet is still chugging along, with a predicted 3 billion users by year’s end. Still, the Internet’s fate feels distinctly uncertain as 2014 draws to a close. At stake is whether the Internet remains a democratic, user-powered network — or falls under the control of a few powerful entities. Here are the four Internet issues that played leading roles this year. . .

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